Images of

ANTARCTICA

Healy

Photos © 2002 Seth White

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Here is the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy. Not many pictures on this page, and the only closeup is this one through the Crary lab telescope. Why? Because this ship didn't ever dock here. It arrived, worked continuously, then left. I'm not sure why it never stopped at the ice pier, but every member of the crew did get to come ashore for a bit.

The Polar Sea and Healy tag-teaming the turning basin. After the Polar Sea arrived and found extremely difficult ice conditions, the decision was made to send for the Healy to help out. It left from Seattle and arrived about 3-4 weeks later. The Healy is much newer, but does not have nearly the icebreaking capabilities of the Polar Sea (or its sister ship Polar Star which sometimes visits McMurdo...I am told these ships can break 21' of ice, although very slowly!). But it was very helpful in keeping the ice channel open as well as opening up the channel to allow the fuel tanker Matthiesen to park only 4 miles from McMurdo.

The two ships doing their thing again. The Healy looks a bit "stockier" than the Polar Sea. I was told that it was built with a lot more room for scienctific equipment and labs on board. Its main duties are in the Arctic, but since the Polar Star was in dry dock, it was sent South this summer.

More of the two ships in the turning basin.

The Healy with the American Tern as it was making its approach to the ice pier.

Here's the bridge of the Healy as seen through the telescope. I was hoping this ship would come in, but it never did. It was still pretty neat, however, to see two icebreakers working right outside of town.