After extensive ice trials, the nation's newest polar icebreaker USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) ushers in a new era in science support and shipboard innovations.
Scientific interest in the Arctic has a distinguished history. While the earliest European exploration was motivated by the search for a northwest passage to the Orient and for tangible resources, the 19th century saw the quest for polar knowledge blossom. Science played a part in the first continuing Arctic involvement by the United States, as ships of the Revenue Cutter Service began regular patrols of the Bering Sea and Arctic Alaska soon after purchase of the unknown territory in 1867.
Difficult access and challenging field conditions have caused knowledge of the region to lag that of most other areas of our planet. Global climate change, however, has heightened the focus considerably. Evidence is accumulating that a warming climate is measurably altering the Arctic. Beyond the expansion of pure knowledge lie environmental, political, and economic concerns of international significance.
The prospects for Arctic science are enhanced considerably by a new icebreaker designed for research in the polar regions. The USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) has completed intensive shakedown operations, icebreaking performance trials, and science system testing. She is the largest ship in the Coast Guard fleet and packs not only comprehensive science support capabilities but also a wealth of technology and processes that will allow her small crew to work smarter and more effectively.
Acquisition History
The Healy represents almost 25 years of effort aimed at replacing U.S. polar icebreaking capability. In the 1960s, the U.S. Navy transferred its icebreakers to the Coast Guard, consolidating the fleet of eight polar-capable ships that had been operated by both services since the World War II. This organizational shift followed logically from the Coast Guard's long operating history in the ice-covered waters of Alaska, Greenland, Antarctica, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic Coast. But by 1989, only the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB-10) and USCGC Polar Sea (WAGB-11) remained in service.
The Coast Guard made repeated attempts to build new icebreakers. Designs for dual-role ships to operate in the Great Lakes and in the Arctic were unsuccessful. Making the case for ships that could serve the needs of a variety of agencies and national interests, in multiple roles, became increasingly difficult in the fragmented budget process. In its rejection of a 1982 icebreaker budget request, the Office of Management and Budget directed a comprehensive multiagency study to determine future icebreaker needs. The resulting 400-page Polar Icebreaker Requirements Study, completed in 1984, validated the need for new icebreakers and emphasized the importance of research support capabilities.
After an extensive design process, the Healy was built by Avondale Industries in 134 modular sections on the banks of the Mississippi River. The "keel laying," symbolized by landing the first modules on the levee, took place on 16 September 1996. That month also saw establishment of a science advisory group, the Arctic Icebreaker Coordinating Committee (AICC), as a standing element of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System. The multidisciplinary AICC members, all with impressive credentials and experience in field research, reviewed designs for the Healy's science systems and laboratories, and began providing recommendations for improvements. As the hull and superstructure took shape, this customer-focused review permitted timely modifications to improve the ship.
As construction proceeded, the delivery date slipped in successive steps from July 1998 to late October 1999. Schedule difficulties arose not so much from construction delays as from the complexities of system integration and testing. With sophisticated technology applications, such as substantially automated control and monitoring of the machinery plant and integrated ship control and navigation features, the Healy's complexity far surpassed her size. The propulsion control system proved especially challenging. But the Healy made a "river run" under her own power and subsequently completed builder's sea trials and acceptance trials prior to acceptance by the Navy and Coast Guard on 10 November 1999.
Innovations in Manning
The Healy's commissioning crew began forming in the summer of 1998. Crewing decisions had been made early in the acquisition process, reflecting a strong desire to reduce numbers to well below the existing staffing levels of Coast Guard cutters. The Polar-class ships, with 134 billets each, had been considered minimally manned when they were commissioned in the 1970s. By 1992, the goal was to crew the Healy with about half this number, and a series of staffing studies established a personnel allowance of 10 officer and 57 enlisted billets exclusive of an aviation detachment.
The challenge for the precommissioning period was to develop the organizational processes, both internal and external, that would be needed to safely operate the Coast Guard's largest ship with 67 personnel. I was fortunate to be designated as prospective commanding officer in January 1997 while still in command of the Polar Sea. The next year and a half afforded the opportunity not only to learn about the new ship taking shape in New Orleans, but to examine every detail of icebreaker operations and the shipboard environment from the perspective of personnel efficiency.
As a starting point, the Healy's design and configuration offered significant technological efficiencies. Most visible and promising was the potential for watchstanding economies—and watchstander effectiveness—stemming from the machinery plant control and monitoring system (MPCMS) and the integrated bridge system. Installed damage control systems, including extensive alarm sensors, carbon dioxide flooding of spaces with flammable liquids, aqueous film forming foam bilge flooding, and seawater sprinkling, offered early and decisive response to potential threats.
Other improvements were less far-reaching but proved no less important. A central galley and mess deck would feed all hands, including passengers and science parties, and eliminate the need to staff for separate messes. With reefer and freezer boxes located adjacent to the galley, and dry food stores serviced by a hoist one deck below, food service could be streamlined considerably. All storerooms were accessible to pallet-sized loads by the crane and hatch on the fo'c'sle and with a pallet-jack through oversized watertight doors on the second deck. Hydraulically operated hatches and extensive overhead trolley rails for machinery removals also enhanced access and movement throughout the ship. The Miranda davit systems were designed to allow powered launch and recovery of the rigid-hull inflatable boats with a deck detail of one. Lightweight aramid mooring lines and a powered mooring winch system would accommodate smaller line-handling details.
With a basic but growing knowledge of these features, we began to think about designing shipboard processes to use the Healy's innovative features most advantageously. We identified eight areas that would require development to construct a watch, quarter, and station bill and make us ready as a crew to accept delivery:
- Underway bridge watch. Despite some concerns about electronic chart availability, we elected to use the new bridge technology to its full potential. We designed a bridge watch whose size and composition would be situational, matching personnel resources to the operational need and availability of assistance. During daylight in open water, the officer of the deck (OOD) would perform the traditional ship control and navigation functions, with a nonrated watchstander to assist with look-out and log-keeping duties. At night, with the complications of darkness and less ready access to assistance, the watch would be augmented with a petty officer acting as the junior officer of the deck.
- Underway engineering watch. While, in theory, a single engineering officer of the watch (EOW) could monitor the machinery plant using MPCMS in the engineering control center, we elected to provide the EOW with a petty officer assistant, designated the technician of the watch. The automatic data collection functions of MPCMS would eliminate the need for periodic rounds and manual logging, leaving the technician to help with overall plant monitoring and check equipment and alarms locally when necessary.
- Inport watch. This was one of the most challenging issues we had to confront. With officers and chiefs standing the inport OOD and EOW rotations, the 43 billets in paygrades E-6 and below would require port and starboard duty sections to staff a traditional large-cutter duty section with full repair locker response capability. We elected instead to provide only initial fire response with a single hose team while moored in home port or in a similar low-risk environment. The Healy's extensive installed systems and alarm monitoring would help balance reduced duty section manpower. We streamlined watchstanding to include a 24-hour security watch and a quarterdeck watchstander present from 0600 to 1800. These choices allowed us to reduce the minimum duty section to five qualified watchstanders plus the OOD and EOW, and provide a five-section rotation in protected ports.
- Flight quarters organization. Configuration improvements—such as a helo control station, foam monitor coverage of the flight deck, and rapid-deploying boats—allowed us to streamline the normally manpower-intensive launch and recovery of aircraft. While hove-to in the ice, which is common for icebreakers, we found that safety goals could be met with as few as four additional people on scene and eight more in standby.
- Damage control organization. Again, the Healy's configuration and installed damage-control systems were prime determinants in fashioning an effective emergency-response organization. We also attacked internal communications, electing to eliminate sound-powered phones in favor of wireless comms. With the goal of "flattening" the organization as much as possible, we removed the locker leaders from the command-and-control chain and located the damage control assistant, in direct contact with the scene leader, on the bridge. The manpower savings allowed full manning of one locker, sufficient investigators, and adequate ship control personnel while at general engineering stations.
- External communications. Although outfitted with a full large-cutter comms suite, the single telecommunications specialist billet forced us to rethink the handling of record message traffic. With assistance from the electronics support unit in Seattle, we developed an international maritime satellite-based system for efficient transmission of unclassified traffic. Tied to the ship's admin computer system, messages as well as e-mail could be sent, received, and routed without paper.
- Operational training. We looked carefully at the ship's installed systems, configuration, and mix of crew capabilities to determine high-priority standard training requirements. The integrated bridge system and nontraditional communications approach, for example, called for rethinking the standard training package. We recommended an emphasis on damage control, engineering casualty control, and selected deck, operations, and aviation evolutions to the operational commander, and developed a training team infrastructure to support it.
- Maintenance philosophy. Condition-based (or reliability-centered) maintenance applications and training programs were developed to include vibration analysis, infrared thermography, onboard oil analysis and advanced engine diagnostic tools. Monitoring equipment and taking maintenance action based on trends and symptoms reduce reliance on manpower-intensive preventive maintenance procedures and avoid "fixing what ain't broke."
Ice Trials
The precommissioning period lengthened as delivery of the ship slipped. By the fall of 1999, the entire crew was present, split between the Healy's Seattle home port and the builder's yard in New Orleans. Most of the extensive system training had been completed, conducted at contractor facilities as far afield as Sulzer's diesel school in Switzerland. We hoisted the Coast Guard Ensign at 1038 on 10 November and placed the Healy "In Commission, Special." The next six months were a blizzard of effort as we conducted system commissioning, builder's and sea trials, and preliminary acceptance trials.
The Healy's primary hurdle, however, lay ahead. Phases III and IV of the carefully planned trials program would determine her ability to operate and conduct science work in the ice. In Halifax in April 2000, we renewed professional contacts with the Canadian Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Navy, and embarked an eclectic trials team of representatives from the Coast Guard Engineering Logistics Center, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, the Canadian National Research Council, the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab, the U.S. National Ice Center, Canadian Ice Service, Helsinki University, Hamburg Ship Test Facility, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Passing out of the Strait of Belle Isle on 4 April, the Healy encountered ice off the Labrador Coast. Although the loose pack of about .6-inch concentration was hardly a challenge, it was an exciting first for all aboard. We began working our way north, looking for large, level floes for testing and learning how the new ship handled in ice.
A series of low pressure systems brought frequent winds, snow, and white-out conditions, halting forward progress and testing for 24- to 36-hour periods. Level floes of the size needed for the test runs proved elusive, however. After locating a suitable floe by helo, we were able to begin the first tests on 10 April. Even with less than full power available, and power unbalanced between the shafts, the Healy was able to break 2.5 to 3 feet of ice easily. We recorded considerable data at various power settings that would be correlated with ice thickness measurements taken every 50 meters along the track.
A floe 26 miles in diameter provided several excellent test areas. We spent most of a week making additional runs at increasing power levels and performed 3600 turning circles. Polar bear visits provided frequent entertainment, culminating in an Easter Sunday romp by two playful bears within yards of the ship. At the end of three weeks in the ice, the Healy headed for Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, to change out members of the test party.
The next three weeks were more challenging but far more rewarding. We headed further north, toward Home Bay along the central Baffin Island coast, in search of thicker level ice to test the upper limits of the Healy's abilities. The original objective was the wide sheet of fast ice extending into Home Bay. However, we found the large moving floes increasingly tough to negotiate, with open water leads constantly changing from the south-flowing current as well as from tidal influences. A few miles from the ice edge, we spent an interesting morning and afternoon nipped between two large moving floes 6- to 8-feet thick. It provided some serendipitous data on hull strength and the awesome spectacle of ten-foot rubble piles rising astern where our track had been! It was a great incentive to develop an alternate plan.
Accordingly, guided by satellite imagery we reconnoitered with the helicopters to the north and east. In short order we found a great test area, with level floe-ice more than 5-feet thick. As in the earlier weeks, once a power run of ten or more ship lengths had been completed an ice party spent several hours drilling cores every 50 meters along the edge of the track and towing an electromagnetic induction instrument to get a continuous profile of ice thickness.
We developed a fairly efficient routine of recon, transit, power runs, and ice measurement, and began piling up data. The weather grew increasingly helpful. We had many glorious days of sunshine and unlimited visibility.
The ultimate level ice test saw the Healy tackle a stretch of ice 5.5-feet thick with four inches of snow cover. Many expected this to be an academic exercise, with the ship sitting firmly in place while the propellers flailed away in the water astern. The design had, after all, targeted top capability at 4.5-foot ice; two independent model tests had reached conflicting conclusions as to whether the design goal would be achieved. But the Healy began to creep forward with 22,000 shaft horsepower in the water and at 29,000 pushed ahead to a steady-state speed of 2.57 knots. This was in a giant floe with no cracks, leads, or weak spots to provide relief.
Backing and ramming, a key icebreaker maneuver in heavy ice conditions, was also tested. We found a multi-year floe with rock-hard ice ranging in thickness from 8 to 18 feet. After a grid of ice core measurements was laid out 350 meters ahead of the ship, we began backing and ramming in a railroad-track pattern about three ship-widths wide. Gaining a third to half a ship length of penetration on each ram, the Healy covered the 350-meter field in 17 back-and-ram cycles. In a later test, it took only three rams to break through a first-year ridge with a maximum thickness of 49 feet. The numbers validated the design and give a good sense of the excellent icebreaking capability that Healy will provide.
It was not all work. We found time for a Cinco de Mayo celebration on the ice, complete with a pinata suspended from the bow crane. The multicultural aspect of the day was enhanced by an igloo-building demonstration by the two Inuit guides who accompanied us as advisors on wildlife and local hunting patterns in the area. And as we crossed the Arctic Circle on our way south, Davy Jones boarded the ship to summon all bluenoses on board to appear before Boreas Rex and his court. Perhaps because they already had gained some time in the ice, all were found worthy of the Realm of the Arctic Circle.
The icebreaking performance trials ended in St. John's, Newfoundland, and we welcomed a new test and evaluation team for the fourth and final phase of the shakedown program. Phase IV encompassed performance testing of the Healy's science systems in the ice and cold water environment for which the ship was intended. Members of the AICC and experienced research vessel technicians conducted the comprehensive evaluation and provided technical advice.
We tested electronic and acoustic systems during the first leg. The depth profilers and 150-kHz acoustic doppler current profiler confirmed previous good results in varying depths of the Grand Banks. After discovering the bottom mapping sonar's reference unit was mounted 900 off true, we were able to correct the problem and collect detailed bottom topography data. A test survey of a small seamount near Orphan Knoll, dubbed "Baby Knoll," demonstrated excellent system performance even at speeds up to 15 knots.
The second science leg concentrated on testing the water sampling rosette and towing a multiple opening and closing net and environmental sensor system in the ice. On the third leg, staged from Nuuk, we deployed and recovered two 209-meter moored sensor arrays both in ice and in open water. Anchored to the bottom and held upright by buoyant floats, these array systems have acoustic releases to permit recovery. We also completed a test dredge in preparation for more extensive bottom sampling during the fourth leg.
The final segment of the test program involved coring and dredging in Baffin Bay ice, where we completed successful 40- and 60-foot cores using the starboard side configuration. An 80-foot core was rigged for demonstration. Another bottom dredge, using the bottom mapping sonar for targeting specific geologic features, brought up a load of rocks and mud and validated the precise slowspeed maneuvering capabilities afforded by the dynamic positioning system. Blessed with sunny weather and calm seas, we transited the spectacular fjords of Prins Christian Sund at Greenland's southern tip and ended the leg with port calls in Reykjavik and Dublin.
The science trials ended as successfully as the icebreaking performance testing. The Healy's considerable science capabilities were demonstrated to marine technicians who work with these systems on research vessels and to scientists who will use the information. The crew gained invaluable experience in a wide range of science work, and had developed a lengthy list of warranty discrepancies and improvements. It was clear that after some post-shakedown work, the Healy would be ready to go to work for the first science mission in 2001.
To Homeport and the Future
The Healy, however, had yet to see her permanent home port. The most direct route to Seattle lay through the Northwest Passage, the elusive waterway whose quest over several centuries of exploration often had ended in tragedy. The Healy would be the first ship to transit the Passage in 2000. Planned and coordinated with Canada, the adventure of this final leg was a fitting culmination of the shakedown and trials program.
Our transit was a visible one. We left Dublin on 11 July with two senior Canadian Coast Guard officers, an oceanographic officer of the Royal Canadian Navy, and the master of a Finnish icebreaker as guests. Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, and Lancaster Sound were virtually ice free. We encountered the first significant ice in Peel Sound. Three to five feet thick and rotting on the surface, this fast ice merely slowed the ship to about 10 knots with the autopilot steering handily. More challenging were the multiyear floes of the polar pack. Creeping along in heavy fog, the Healy made slow progress until reaching open water again at Point Barrow. It was clear sailing the rest of the way.
Six-and-a-half months and more than 26,000 miles after leaving New Orleans, the Healy arrived in Seattle on 9 August. An aggressive maintenance program began immediately to prepare the ship for a series of challenging science operations in the summer of 2001. Under National Science Foundation sponsorship, the Healy currently is participating in the Arctic East Summer '01 deployment. She has collected geological samples from the Gakkel Ridge north of Greenland and Svalbard, tested an autonomous underwater vehicle, and ground-truth satellite imagery, working in the ice as far as 880 north. After this six-month mission, with three months spent in Arctic ice, she will return to Seattle.
In the brief pause between arrival in Seattle and preparations for 2001 science work, the Healy's readiness for operations was recognized formally. The Commander, Pacific Area, placed the ship "In Commission, Active" on 21 August 2000. Admiral James M. Loy, Coast Guard Commandant, described the Healy as "truly a technological marvel" and recognized the years of effort behind her commissioning. "Much hard work has been done," he said. "But that hard work is only a down payment on the work that still lies ahead."
The admiral was right on the mark. The Healy's capabilities are truly awesome. Technology and new practices have transformed the shipboard environment. But it still will take hard work, dedication, and commitment by the crew to make optimum use of this new national asset, to pursue the secrets of the Arctic, and to support U.S. interests in a changing region. The Healy and her crew are ready to go to work.
Rear Admiral Garrett was the first commanding officer of the USCGC Healy (WAGB-20), his fifth polar icebreaker assignment.