- Author
- Editorial Staff
- Subjects
- Ship histories and stories
- Tags
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- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- March 2025 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
The US Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star (WAGB 10) has visited Sydney and many other Australian ports numerous times across her 49-year career. She was commissioned in 1976 as a 399-foot long heavy polar icebreaker, displacing 13,500 tons, with a 84-feet wide beam, and a 34-foot draft.
During those five decades Polar Star has provided year-round access to both the Antarctic and Artic polar regions. The ship’s six diesel and three gas turbine engines produce up to 75,000 horsepower to allow her get through the heaviest of ice conditions.
Her most recent visit was to Garden Island in Sydney between 21 –27 December 2024. She then sailed south after a logistics stop for fuel and supplies, before the start of the voyage across the Southern Ocean enroute to Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze 2025.
Deep Freeze
Thos operation is one of the more challenging U.S. military peacetime missions due to the harsh environment in which it is conducted. The southern lands are the coldest, windiest, most inhospitable continent on the planet, and each deployment has always required careful planning and coordination.
The current deployment marks Polar Star’s 28th voyage to Antarctica. Personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy, as well as the Army and Air Force, work together through Joint Task Force-Support Forces Antarctica to continue the tradition of providing U.S. military support. Deep Freeze through the US Antarctic Program works closely with other nation’s Antarctic programs, including Australia, to ensure the use of the continent for the advancement of science.
Duties
Despite her age and the rigors of heavy work across her very active 49-years, Polar Star continues to provide the heavy icebreaking capabilities needed to facilitate sealift, seaport access, bulk fuel supply, and cargo handling for two of America’s three research stations in Antarctica, with McMurdo Station being the largest.
The cutter’s icebreaking capabilities enable the safe delivery of many critical supplies to sustain year-round operations and support international partnership in the harsh Antarctic environment in line with the Antarctic Treaty, itself, celebrating its 65th anniversary this year.
Polar Star departed its Seattle homeport on 22 November 2024 and sailed approximately 7,000 nautical miles with port stops in Honolulu and Sydney. Plans are in hand for a replacement for Polar Star, although the delivery of the new icebreaker is still some years away