“That furthers the world’s knowledge about what’s happening the Arctic.”Īnother top mission in the ongoing Operation Arctic Shield is providing what maritime strategists call persistent “presence” by showing the flag to polar bears and foreign rivals alike. We’ll be recovering a number of sensors left on the seafloor that lived through the winter. We’ll go on to Dutch Harbor so that we can disembark about 40 scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution out of Massachusetts up into the Arctic off of Barrow. “We finished that about a week ago and pulled into Seward, Alaska.

“It’s pretty fascinating, but the research and development leg was only the first leg of our deployment,” said Tlapa. A grappling hook from the cutter fetched one up to send to the Marine Board of Investigation in Seattle. 11 during a blizzard.īeams from the Healy echo-located the Destination’s debris field and the cutter’s unmanned vehicle videotaped the boat’s steel crab pots strewn along the seafloor. George, Alaska, near where the Seattle-based commercial fishing boat Destination and its six crew members were lost on Feb. On July 24, the cutter plunged a sea robot into the Bering Sea near St. Tlapa’s Healy needs divers to perform a range of polar missions, from surveying the habitats of endangered species, to aid marine casualty probes and assist search and rescue operations on the frigid high seas.Ĭonsidered the nation’s premier high-latitude research vessel since it was commissioned 17 years ago, the cutter also acts as the long arm of federal law enforcement near the North Pole, often catching calls to investigate fishing treaty violations and explore undersea wreckage. Greg Tlapa, skipper of the 420-foot Healy, a cutter homeported in Seattle. “We had an all hands memorial service up in the ice and one of our shipmates played taps,” said Capt. Department of Homeland Security, conducts dives. That tragedy triggered widespread reforms in how the Coast Guard, a military branch of the U.S. Jessica Hill and Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Duque about 490 miles north of Barrow, Alaska. With the Healy’s 80 crewmen manning the rails in homage, Ashmore’s team unfurled a Coast Guard flag and left an underwater plaque to commemorate the Aug.

Usn cruiser split world of warships