Problems with Ice Cubes
This is our Ice Pier. It is a floating ice cube that can support all of the ship offloading cargo and vehicles, and it is large enough that the ships can dock against it and stay in deep water.
The pier is about 28 feet thick and this one was built in 1998. It is built during the winter months by building a snow berm on the sea ice and flooding it with sea water. Once that layer freezes they build another berm and flood it again. This process continues again and again until the new pier is thick enough. Also they will put down a layer of 1” steel cable every few layers to help add strength to the pier. The next summer the pier is covered with 6” layer of stone to protect it from the sun and from the wear and tear of truck traffic. Also the pier is attached to the land by many steel cables that are tied to bollards on the solid ground.
Every year that the sea ice goes out, the ice pier is cut from the bollards and hooked up to the ice breaker and towed out to sea to melt away. But since the sea ice hasn’t gone out for many years, this current pier is still being used. And it is getting old and they want to build a new one.
So as you can see it is all open water around the pier now which makes for a nice easy approach to the pier for the ships. Well this week there was a problem.
This large block of fast ice broke off of the land and floated over to the open side of the ice pier, blocking the entrance for ships. Fast ice is sea ice that is adjacent to the land and is many years old and many layers thick. This particular ice cube is about 28 feet thick just like the pier. So the ice cube created a major problem. If the breaker just rammed into the ice cube it would possibly damage the pier.
So the Oden had to come in and slowly and carefully breakup the ice cube into small pieces and push them out to sea. They were able to move around enough that they could break the cube by pressing against the sea ice instead of the ice pier. They made quick work of the 28' thick ice and most of it was gone before we went to bed last night.
Here is a shot of the pier area from a helicopter. The purple is the broken out area of the shipping channel. The yellow is the ice pier. And the green is the large chunck of fast ice that broke off and plugged up the shipping lane.
The biggest reason that we are interested in having the pier open ASAP is that we will be having pleasure cruises on the Coast Guard Polar Sea on Sunday if all goes well. That is a nice thing to look forward too. And the fuel ship should be in port next Friday if everything goes as planned. That will take 4 days to offload the 9 million gallons of fuel.
That is all for now.
21 days to go.
R.J.
The pier is about 28 feet thick and this one was built in 1998. It is built during the winter months by building a snow berm on the sea ice and flooding it with sea water. Once that layer freezes they build another berm and flood it again. This process continues again and again until the new pier is thick enough. Also they will put down a layer of 1” steel cable every few layers to help add strength to the pier. The next summer the pier is covered with 6” layer of stone to protect it from the sun and from the wear and tear of truck traffic. Also the pier is attached to the land by many steel cables that are tied to bollards on the solid ground.
Every year that the sea ice goes out, the ice pier is cut from the bollards and hooked up to the ice breaker and towed out to sea to melt away. But since the sea ice hasn’t gone out for many years, this current pier is still being used. And it is getting old and they want to build a new one.
So as you can see it is all open water around the pier now which makes for a nice easy approach to the pier for the ships. Well this week there was a problem.
This large block of fast ice broke off of the land and floated over to the open side of the ice pier, blocking the entrance for ships. Fast ice is sea ice that is adjacent to the land and is many years old and many layers thick. This particular ice cube is about 28 feet thick just like the pier. So the ice cube created a major problem. If the breaker just rammed into the ice cube it would possibly damage the pier.
So the Oden had to come in and slowly and carefully breakup the ice cube into small pieces and push them out to sea. They were able to move around enough that they could break the cube by pressing against the sea ice instead of the ice pier. They made quick work of the 28' thick ice and most of it was gone before we went to bed last night.
Here is a shot of the pier area from a helicopter. The purple is the broken out area of the shipping channel. The yellow is the ice pier. And the green is the large chunck of fast ice that broke off and plugged up the shipping lane.
The biggest reason that we are interested in having the pier open ASAP is that we will be having pleasure cruises on the Coast Guard Polar Sea on Sunday if all goes well. That is a nice thing to look forward too. And the fuel ship should be in port next Friday if everything goes as planned. That will take 4 days to offload the 9 million gallons of fuel.
That is all for now.
21 days to go.
R.J.
posted by R.J. at 3:59 PM
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