To Build Ships That Break Ice, U.S. Must Learn to Cut Steel Again.

The Northern trade route between Asia, Europe and America is becoming increasingly important. Without a sufficient number of ice-breaking ships, we will not be able to use this route. It will remain for the Russians and Chinese.

 

"PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- A $13.3 billion program to safeguard American interests in the Arctic has run aground on an old industrial challenge: cutting and shaping thick, hardened steel.

U.S. officials are racing to procure new polar icebreakers because one of only two that the Coast Guard now sails has reached the end of its life, and the one assigned to the Arctic is out of service for maintenance every winter. Delivery of the first new icebreaker has slipped to 2028 from 2024 as designers, engineers and welders grapple with something the U.S. hasn't done in decades: reliably shape hardened steel that is more than an inch thick into a curved, reinforced ship's hull.

The Coast Guard hasn't launched a new heavy icebreaker since 1976. Out of practice, U.S. shipbuilders have had to relearn how to design and build the specialized vessel, say officials in the industry and the government.

Receding sea ice in the Arctic due to climate change is, paradoxically, increasing the need for icebreakers and other vessels that can handle rough conditions in and around the Arctic Ocean, officials say. Russian vessel traffic in the northern reaches of the globe is rising.

For the Coast Guard, a branch of the armed services that is part of the Department of Homeland Security, the goal is to launch a new class of armed icebreakers -- called polar security cutters -- that can tackle problems ranging from environmental disasters to strategic confrontation in icy waters. The total estimated cost of the polar security cutter program increased to $13.3 billion in 2021 from $9.8 billion in 2018, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The science-focused Healy medium icebreaker, which is normally assigned to the Arctic, has to undergo repairs and refitting annually in California or Washington. The other, the heavy icebreaker Polar Star, is nearing the end of its useful service life.

By comparison, Russia has three dozen national icebreakers suitable for the Arctic, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, and China has four, including two icebreaking research ships that regularly appear at high latitudes. U.S. officials suspect those have strategic purposes. Beijing says science is driving its Arctic ambitions.

Russia and China have also been increasing cooperation in the Bering Sea and the Arctic. One Coast Guard cutter intercepted a joint Russian-Chinese squadron of warships last year in the exclusive economic zone near Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Last month, a larger Russian-Chinese group was tracked by U.S. warships and surveillance craft.

Besides a powerful propulsion system, the key feature of a heavy polar icebreaker is its thick hull, Coast Guard officers say. The machinery and skills to build the hulls of most oceangoing vessels aren't sufficient for the specialized icebreakers. The hull plates need a bespoke alloy and specialized heat treatment, with a process to form and weld massive curved plates.

American yards are also reckoning with a shortage of shipwrights. Employment in ship and boat building totaled just 154,800 in July after peaking at 1.3 million during World War II, according to data.

"One of the challenges is the workforce -- getting qualified welders," said Bob Merchent, retired former chief executive of VT Halter Marine, since acquired by Bollinger Shipyards.

Under a joint Coast Guard-Navy program in 2017, Bollinger Shipyards and Halter Marine won contracts for preliminary designs for the new icebreakers. In 2019, Halter Marine won the contract for the polar security cutters, but the pandemic and other delays have slowed design and engineering work and prevented the start of construction.

In 2022, as Russian President Vladimir Putin launched two giant icebreakers in St. Petersburg, Halter Marine was finally supposed to start construction of the first new icebreaker, to be christened the Polar Sentinel. Instead the company, which was owned by a state-owned Singaporean firm with Chinese clients, was sold to Bollinger. The U.S. icebreakers needed a bigger company with more resources to complete the design work and begin working with the steel, according to people familiar with the program.

Only in August did Bollinger begin testing, cutting and assembling steel prototype modules that could become part of the Polar Sentinel -- if the modules meet rigorous tests.

Full construction could begin next year." [1]

1. U.S. News: To Build Ships That Break Ice, U.S. Must Learn to Cut Steel Again. Mauldin, William. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 18 Sep 2023: A.3.