budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) (05/03/89)
From: budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) While the ice island notion was properly judged as impractical in the Battle of the Atlantic, there are other entirely practical uses. Sea story time... My first sea tour was on an icebreaker. When we drew our Deepfreeze trip to the Antarctic, we got in on the customary break-the-channel-to McMurdo act -- two WAGBs working side by side on parallel railroad tracks about 300-500 yards apart. At the far end -- about 15 miles from the ice edge when we started -- is Hut point and the 'pier'. Now this is a somewhat generous use of the term, but the object is to get a tanker and a couple cargo ships in where they can resupply the place for another year. Draft alongside the 'pier' is inadequate for the T5 tanker, so the winter-over crew had been assiduously carrying their garbage down and spreading it around this football field sized chunk of ice just seaward of the 'pier'. Then, they'd pump some water over this mess. It would, of course freeze and sink a little. Repeat the process all winter long and you get an ice island of sorts. They had even embedded 3-4 i-beams that could be used for bollards (this strictly according to theory). When we got in, the ship ops officer (CG staffie on the McMurdo crew) had been out with a drill 'perforating' the perimiter around this ice pier so we could get in with our 10000 tons and 6000 horses and cut along the dotted line. Presto -- again according to theory -- a deep draft moorage. Well, the CO and I had a very interesting morning 'accomplishing' the above. CO likened this to cutting diamonds with a sledgehammer. About half way thru, we managed to crack the pier 'midships. Ship Ops got out with some cables and comalongs and used the 'bollards' to stitch things back together again. The face of this animal was pretty jagged by the time we got thru polishing it, but it did work after a fashion. But i believe they tried to find some better alternative the next year. Rex Buddenberg -------