Coast Guard Cutter Healy: Inside The Largest U.S. Icebreaker

Coast Guard Cutter Healy is the Coast Guard's largest vessel and one of only two U.S. icebreakers able to operate in the frigid polar regions. As these areas change the Coast Guard is adapting to continue to ensure safety, security and stewardship in the polar regions. This is the Coast Guard's massive icebreaker Heeley at 420 ft . It's the Coast Guard's largest vessel and one of only two us icebreakers able to operate in the frigid polar regions . But what are they doing up there ? Anyway , today , we're gonna take you aboard the Heeley to show you what it's like to live and work on one of these huge ships and uncover the real reason the Coast Guard operates in the polar regions to understand the Coast Guard's polar mission . We spoke with the crew of coast Guard cutter Healy supporting Arctic research is the Healy's primary mission . We were specifically designed in co-operation with the National Science Foundation to conduct research in that region to get researchers to these remote locations . The Healy can break ice up to 8.5 ft thick . Using the power from its enormous diesel electric plant . Four powerful diesel engines produce an impressive 46,000 horsepower . This energy is converted into electricity to drive the Heeley electric motors which spin its two massive 16 ft propellers and thrust the heley forward to smash through walls of ice . But all of that would be impossible . Without the Heelys specially designed bow , which does a couple of interesting things . The hull itself is constructed so that there is an ice belt that's about an inch and a half to two inches thick and make sure that as we are impacting the ice , we're not deforming the ship . The bow also has this reinforced point area called the ice knife that is essentially a stronger point of impact purposely built to as we're impacting the ice , open it up . But even though the heli is built to break ice , the crew actually tries to avoid ice when possible , determining what route to take . Our deck . Watch . Officers and ice pilots are trained to analyze all the conditions and they do that by utilizing all the resources they have available to them . First , the deck watch officer is positioned up here in the aloft con which gives them a better view of their surroundings . They also have access to satellite imagery forecasting and radar .

Defense Now March - 2024
   • DN Mar. 2024  

Inside The Largest U.S. Icebreaker
SEATTLE, WA, UNITED STATES
03.29.2024

Film Credits: Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Travis Magee
U.S. Coast Guard District 13

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