US Coast Guard icebreaker Healy calls in Seward, Alaska, while embarking on North Pole deployment. (Janes/Michael Fabey)
The US Coast Guard (USCG) Cutter Healy (WAGB-20) reached the North Pole on 30 September after traversing the frozen Arctic Ocean, marking only the second time a US ship has reached the location unaccompanied, the USCG confirmed on 4 October.
Healy first accomplished that feat in 2015. This is the third time Healy has travelled to the North Pole since its commissioning in 1999.
The medium icebreaker and crew departed Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on 4 September, beginning their journey to reach latitude 90º N, USCG officials reported. The cutter and crew supported oceanographic research in collaboration with National Science Foundation-funded scientists throughout their transit to the North Pole.
The North Pole trek is part of a months-long, multimission deployment to conduct oceanographic research in the region. Healy departed its Seattle home port on 11 July and has 34 scientists and technicians from multiple universities and institutions aboard, and nearly 100 crew members.
During the cutter's first Arctic leg of the patrol throughout July and August, Healy travelled into the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, going as far north as 78º. As a part of the Office of Naval Research's Arctic Mobile Observing System programme, Healy deployed underwater sensors, sea gliders, and acoustic buoys to study Arctic hydrodynamics in the marginal and pack ice zones.
“The ice was pretty thick, getting from open water in the Chukchi Sea and over to the Beaufort Sea,” Captain Ken Boda told Janes
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