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The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star doesn't sleep, not for a
second. The cutter and its crew rotate through a daily cycle, like
the Antarctic sun looking down on the icebreaker. Always moving,
never setting.
At midnight, surrounded by miles of fast ice,
a lone channel to the Ross Sea trailing behind, there are still
watchstanders attending to the aging cutter.
What's going on
above and below the deck? What does it take to run the nation's only
operational heavy icebreaker? There's no better way to find out than
living it. So join us for two days of 12-hour watch shifts: three
four-hour watches from 8 a.m. (0800) to 8 p.m. (2000) each day.
Start your coffee brewing; it's going to be a long couple of days.
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A U.S. Coast Guard HH-52A Seaguard helicopter landing on the icebreaker USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) IN 2005. (U.S Coast Guard courtesy photo)
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Day 1
0800-1200 ... Bridge
Watches
The Polar Star's bridge spans the
entire width of the ship. With the exception of a small
space where the door stands, windows encircle the room
completely. This is the control hub for the cutter during
normal at-sea operations, and there is no shortage of
equipment to guarantee the crew gets where they are headed
safely.
Navigational charts, both paper
and digital, multiple radar screens, binoculars, true and
magnetic compasses, alidades for determining bearing to
nearby landmarks, and books upon books of nautical and
navigational knowledge make up the bridge's extensive
toolset. The space is accented by the new and the old:
flashing digital alarms, connected to machinery throughout
the ship, and polished brass, likely no younger than the
icebreaker itself.
At the chart table, one of the
three qualified watchstanders for this period carefully
takes note of the current latitude and longitude in the
ship's position log. Meet the quartermaster of the watch,
QMOW, an expert of navigation and log keeping,
“As
the QMOW we have to know just as much as the officer of the
deck does, as far as the navigational picture,” says Petty
Officer 3rd Class Michael Garcia, a boatswain's mate in the
Polar Star's navigational division. “If you look at the
basics of the watch, it's pretty easy, but there is just so
much more information you have to know for the watch that
makes the qualification difficult.”
During ice
operations, the QMOW is the most senior watchstander on the
bridge, because the officer of the day (OOD) is about 70
feet above everyone else, piloting from what's known as
aloft conn: aloft, as in high up, and conn, as in steering
the ship. It's the QMOW's job to make sure the other two
watchstanders – the boatswain's mate of the watch (BMOW) and
the lookout – are staying vigilant on their own watches.
Speaking of other watchstanders, it's time for the
boatswain's mate of the watch, Seaman Mauro Tapia, a member
of the Polar Star's deck department, to make a round about
the cutter. Since we've already met the QMOW, we'll tag
along with Tapia.
First, a crucial step: donning a
survival suit before facing the extreme environment just on
the other side of the bridge door. The jolts and heaves of
breaking ice could potentially send you into the water, or
onto the ice, if you're out on deck. And the BMOW's round
will require plenty of time on the frigid deck.
“We're looking for fire and flooding, and making sure that
everything's secure,” says Tapia. “There are all sorts of
odds and ends, boxes and 55-gallon drums. The vibrations
loosen stuff.”
That goes for ice operations, and
during heavy seas while crossing the Pacific on their way
from Seattle to Antarctica.
The round is not in vain.
Tapia checks the tightness of the hatches on the ship's bow,
then makes his way aft, or toward the back of the cutter, to
check the flight deck. It turns out that there is a loose
safety net, and he's quick to rig some line around the net
to secure it in place. Without a constant watch, things are
capable of just falling apart under the steady vibration of
ice breaking.
With the deck now secure, Tapia heads
back up to the bridge. It's almost time for lunch, which
will mean reliefs for everyone, including this watch
period's lookout. Seaman Joe Vaccaro, also a member of the
deck department, gazes forward out one of the many windows,
a pair of binoculars in hand.
“When we're breaking
ice, all we stand is lookout,” says Vaccaro, who normally
would also rotate through the helmsman position when an ice
pilot isn't driving. “Marine life is more of a concern as we
break the channel, you'll have whales coming into the path
we broke and seals hopping in and out.”
While
breaking a channel to the National Science Foundation's
McMurdo Station is the key component of Operation Deep
Freeze 2016, the U.S. military' logistical support to the
NSF-managed U.S. Antarctic Program, the cutter's crew also
strives not to disturb the Antarctic wildlife. In a land as
untouched as this, the watchstanders do what they can to
minimize impact.
All the bridge watchstanders head
down to lunch as their reliefs arrive, but the Polar Star is
still charging ahead through the ice, backing and ramming
the miles away. And that brings us to the next watch, the
ice pilots of aloft conn.
1200-1600 ... Ice Pilot
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Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star ice pilots and break-in ice pilots
control steering and propulsion from the icebreaker's aloft conn in
McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, Jan. 9, 2016. The ice pilot is an officer
of the deck with further expertise in navigating through sea ice. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Grant DeVuyst)
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A series of ladders from the bridge lead up five levels
to a confined working space with the best view on the
cutter. With one qualified watchstander and two break-ins
learning the watch, the little crow's nest of a room quickly
becomes crowded. The view, however, makes up for the lack of
personal space.
The entire cutter lies out below
aloft conn, and the 360 degrees of glass allow a sight
unlike any other on board. The heightened position adds
another two miles or so to the ice pilot's horizon, which is
the entire point of driving way up above everything else.
“It gives you the height of eye to see a lot further,”
says Petty Officer 1st Class Steve Braun, a boatswain's mate
in the Polar Star's deck department. “This way you can pick
out your path once we get to the larger floes, because the
idea is: if you don't have to, don't break it. Find the
easiest route to put the least stress on the ship.”
When the Polar Star hits ice, nowhere is it felt quite like
in aloft conn. The center of the ship is the fulcrum, and
the small control room swings and shudders wildly as the
cutter bucks and rocks.
At the moment there are only
three qualified ice pilots on the cutter, but Braun will
join their ranks soon. He stands now at the throttles and
helm, preparing to plow into the ice between the Polar Star
and McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
“Three knots ahead,”
says Master Chief Petty Officer Greg Zerfass, a boatswain's
mate in the Polar Star's navigation division. “Five ahead,
seven ahead, eight.”
His voice trails off and is
replaced by an explosion of rattling as everyone in aloft
conn, and likely most of the crew below, braces for the
unpredictable clash of steel on ice. The process continues
for all four hours, and at the end of the watch their hard
work shows.
McMurdo Station is nearly four miles
closer; progress from the total 12 miles between the U.S.
base and open water.
As Braun powers through another
ramming of the ice, a familiar voice comes over the radio:
“Conn, main control, could you come back half on center?”
It's the engineer of the watch, letting the ice pilots
know that their propulsion is being pushed to its limit. The
engineer of the watch (EOW) is our next watch, and for that
we head below deck to the core of the ship.
1600-2000 ... Engineers of the Watch
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Lt. Spencer Ross, the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star's assistant engineer officer, works with the cutter's machinery software while underway in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, Jan. 9, 2016. Engineer watchstanders
monitor machinery and respond to alarms from engineer control
central. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Grant DeVuyst)
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The mere thought of learning the purpose of every dial,
monitor, meter, alarm, switch and button in the Polar Star's
engineering control center is overwhelming. Gray panels
stretch out in front of two black chairs. Computer screens
show graphic readouts of propulsion, power and
auxiliary equipment. It's a lot to take in. It's easy to
imagine the learning process for the entire console could
take years. But here sit two watchstanders, the engineer of
the watch and the assistant engineer of the watch, who know
exactly what's going on, despite the relatively short length
of a tour aboard the cutter.
During this phase of
icebreaking, the scene is controlled chaos. The EOW and AEOW
sit quite literally on the edge of their seats, ready to act
when the inevitable problem occurs. It doesn't take long.
Master Chief
Petty Officer Ron Ritter, a machinery technician who
oversees the Polar Star's auxiliary machinery division, is
quick to inform the ice pilot when the wing propeller on the
port side of the cutter takes too much of a beating.
“Conn, main control, port shaft is in shaft protect,” he
says as one of the screens in front of him warns him of the
change in state.
Other alarms sound around the space.
It's not just propulsion that the EOW and AEOW are
monitoring, but also the ship's power supply, in the form of
diesel generators, and all auxiliary machinery that provides
heating, cooling, refrigeration, water, and sewage to the
crew and passengers.
“The main thing that the
engineer of the watch and the assistant engineer of the
watch are doing is monitoring all the machinery on the MCAM
system, which is the five different screens you see here,”
Ritter says, gesturing to his watch station. “We're also
monitoring the main propulsion and main gas turbines. We hit
heavy ice, which can sometimes send them into an overload
condition.”
Their response requires steady attention
to the display at hand and communication with aloft conn,
where the movement of the ship is being controlled.
“It's the nature of the ice,” Ritter adds. “It takes a toll
on the machinery.”
The EOW and AEOW are in the zone,
and not proverbially, through the entire four hours of
watch, especially while the Polar Star is breaking ice.
Distractions are kept to a minimum, and nobody is allowed to
come between the two watchstanders and their control center,
an area referred to as “the zone.”
While the
monitoring system gives a remote picture of the ship's
machinery, it's not capable of affecting repairs or
identifying issues outside its programmed function. This is
why the EOW has the auxiliary and security watchstanders,
two positions we'll get to tomorrow. But for now it's been a
long day of watch, and if you're going to be ready to stand
another day like this, it's time to get some chow from the
galley and hit the rack. The ship has finally stopped
breaking ice for the day, so make sure to get plenty of rest
before the shuddering of forward progress starts again in
the morning.
Day 2
By U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Grant DeVuyst
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2016
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