The SIU-crewed vessels USNS Paul Buck and American Tern, both part of the U.S. Military Sealift Command (MSC) fleet, recently participated in Operation Deep Freeze, the annual resupply mission to the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station in Artarctica.The USNS Paul Buck, a tanker operated by Ocean Shipholdings, Inc., arrived Feb. 1 and pumped off 162,000 barrels of fuel for equipment ranging from generators to helicopters. Once the Paul Buck departed, the American Tern, operated by Osprey-Acomarit Ship Management, docked at McMurdo’s ice pier to deliver 29,000 tons of equipment, food and other supplies—the life-sustaining cargo for McMurdo’s research scientists and residents.
This was summer in Antarctica, so there was continuous sunlight for the around-the-clock operations.
Phil Corl, the bosun aboard the Buck (who sent these photos to the Seafarers LOG), noted that it was much colder this trip than the previous one in 2005. Both ships encountered severe weather, rough seas, high winds and small icebergs en route to McMurdo, but both made it on time. Two icebreakers, the U.S.Coast Guard’s Polar Sea and Swedish icebreaker Oden had begun work in December to break a channel through 18 miles of ice that separated the open water from the pier.
Corl said that the day they left McMurdo, it was -23 degrees F, with a 17-knot wind. “Thank God and Ocean Ships for the insulated suits and little chemical hand warmers that were handed out,” he said.
He also noted that it was so cold that one of the main ballast line valves froze in the closed position and had to be replaced. “Not a job for the weak of heart,” he said, “but the operation itself went flawlessly.”
MSC has participated in Operation Deep Freeze every year since the station was established in 1955.
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