The Coast Guard has announced that Juneau, Alaska, will be the home port for the Aiviq, a U.S.-registered Arctic oil exploration support ship capable of operating as a medium polar icebreaker.
It was a rare piece of good news in the Coast Guard’s long struggle to beef up its polar fleet, which is no match for Russia’s more than 40 icebreakers.
The $125 million Aiviq is the only U.S.-built commercial vessel that meets icebreaking standards, but Coast Guard officials acknowledged it won’t be ready for two years.
“The United States is an Arctic nation, and the Coast Guard is vital to providing a presence in our sovereign waters and the polar regions,” Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s vice commandant, said in a recent statement. “Acquiring a commercially available polar icebreaker will enable the Coast Guard to increase our national presence in the Arctic.”
The Arctic region is becoming increasingly strategic as melting ice opens new commercial and military transportation routes, including for Russia and China. Officials say the U.S. and its partners must be prepared.
“We’re seeing some of the most assertive and even aggressive actions of potential adversaries who are really leaning forward in the Arctic,” Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair told The Washington Times in May. “The region is facing new challenges and potentially new threats, and it really demands that we respond in an appropriate way.”
An Arctic ‘crisis’
The Coast Guard has had the only U.S. polar icebreaking capability since 1965. According to a 2023 Coast Guard fleet analysis, it needs at least four heavy icebreakers and a similar number of medium icebreakers to carry out its Arctic and Antarctic missions.
It operates only two polar icebreakers: the medium-class U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy and the USCGC Polar Star, the sole heavy icebreaker in the fleet. Several smaller icebreakers support maritime traffic on the Great Lakes and along the East Coast, but they aren’t capable of operating in polar regions.
“It’s definitely a crisis right now, but it’s something that has been decades in the making,” said Rebecca Pincus, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. “We’re at a point right now where the U.S. has fewer icebreakers than China.”
The Healy and the Polar Star are currently out of action. On July 25, the Healy was about a month into its summer Arctic patrol when a fire broke out in the engineering compartment. The fire was quickly extinguished, but the Healy returned to its home port of Seattle out of what Coast Guard officials called an abundance of caution.
“In the Arctic, there are few rescue resources, and ice-covered waters make it difficult for rescue assets,” said Capt. Michele Schallip, the Healy’s commanding officer. “Crews operating in polar waters must be well-trained for emergency response, and responsible operation includes addressing any system degradation on a vessel before continuing operations in the high latitudes.”
The Polar Star, commissioned in the 1970s, is undergoing major maintenance at a dry dock in California. The Coast Guard expects it to be ready for its Antarctic icebreaking mission later this year.
The Polar Sea, its sister ship, has been out of commission for several years and is regularly cannibalized for parts to keep the Polar Star afloat.
A heavy polar icebreaker can continuously smash through 6 feet of ice at a speed of 3 knots and 20 or more feet of ice by backing up and ramming. A medium icebreaker can power through almost 5 feet of ice at 3 knots and at least 8 feet by backing and ramming.
Searching for a solution
The Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter program was meant to provide a fleet of heavy and medium icebreakers for about $3.2 billion.
In 2019, the Coast Guard awarded a contract to VT Halter Marine to design and construct up to three icebreakers. Two years later, Bollinger Shipyards of Louisiana bought out the company. A Government Accountability Office study in May concluded that the Coast Guard’s priority shipbuilding programs are now “well behind schedule and have experienced significant cost growth.”
The ship’s design required substantial modifications to meet the Coast Guard’s needs. According to a recently released Congressional Budget Office study, it was only 59% complete in July.
GAO analysts blamed the Coast Guard’s polar icebreaker delay on four primary factors: the lack of companies in the U.S. with experience constructing the niche vessels; a complex design requiring a specialized steel alloy and new welding procedures; a shipbuilder that was forced to make significant design changes to meet government specifications; and COVID-19 restrictions that limited the company’s ability to collaborate and consult with domestic and international partners.
“Officials told us that, unlike with other shipbuilding programs, there were no existing U.S.-developed hull designs for a heavy polar icebreaker that the shipbuilder could easily leverage as a basis for the Polar Security Cutter,” the GAO said.
The original shipbuilder based its Polar Security Cutter on a European-designed research ship.
“The shipbuilder and its design subcontractor likely overestimated the extent to which that design could be leveraged,” the GAO said. “This resulted in a contractor having to make considerable changes to the design of that ship, which led to delays.”
Ms. Pincus, with the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, said the Coast Guard’s program delays and the Navy’s shipbuilding challenges indicate systemic problems in the nation’s shipbuilding industry.
“We’re not good at building ships, and when we do build ships, they are really, really expensive and they take way too long,” Ms. Pincus said. “We’ve lost the expertise that’s been eroded out over the last few decades.”
On July 26, lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee castigated Adm. Linda Fagan, the Coast Guard commandant, for the delays and cost overruns for the Polar Security Cutters.
“The PSC program was initially supposed to have delivered the first cutter by this year, but construction on the first ship has not even begun,” said a statement by Rep. Mark Green, Tennessee Republican and committee chairman. “The PSC program’s cost will be almost 60% higher than the Coast Guard’s current estimate.”
Adm. Fagan called the Polar Security Cutter “a critical national security asset” because it allows the U.S. to have a presence and operate in its polar exclusive economic zone.
“The Polar Security Cutter contract has been delayed. We’re working with [Bollinger Shipyards] to finalize the detailed design [and] begin building the cutter in earnest,” she said. “We have a design. The design maturity is critical to reducing risk and onward schedule slippage and cost.”
Ms. Pincus said the Coast Guard has been starved of resources for years. Even with a new fleet of icebreakers, the operations and maintenance costs will be extensive.
“The Coast Guard is tiny, and icebreakers are really expensive. It’s like a snake trying to swallow an elephant,” she said. “It just doesn’t fit into Coast Guard budgets, and Congress has not given them” the funding needed.
The Coast Guard, like other military services, has had difficulties with recruiting to fill its ranks.
“The Coast Guard is in a place right now where they are mothballing cutters because they don’t have enough people to crew them,” Ms. Pincus said. “The Coast Guard needs more icebreakers, but it’s got to figure out how to crew them and operate them and maintain them.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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