ICEBREAKERS This Icebreaker Has Design Problems and a History of Failure. It’s America’s Latest Military Vessel.
The Coast Guard’s $125 million purchase of the Aiviq, made under congressional pressure, follows the service’s failure to get its preferred, $1 billion model built.
Reporting Highlights
· Troubled History: The icebreaker Aiviq was built for oil work in the Arctic but has design issues. Its maiden voyage to Alaska ended in a rescue at sea and a Coast Guard investigation.
· Influential Donor: The Aiviq’s Louisiana builder has made more than $7 million in political contributions since 2012. For much of that time, Edison Chouest sought to sell or lease the ship.
· Wider Problem: The Coast Guard’s $125 million purchase of the Aiviq, made under congressional pressure, follows the service’s failure to get its preferred, $1 billion model built.
The icebreaker Aiviq is a gas guzzler with a troubled history. The ship was built to operate in the Arctic, but it has a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. Its waste and discharge systems weren’t designed to meet polar code, its helicopter pad is in the wrong place to launch rescue operations and its rear deck is easily swamped by big waves.
On its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012, the 360-foot vessel lost control of the Shell Oil drill rig it was towing, and Coast Guard helicopter crews braved a storm to pluck 18 men off the wildly lurching deck of the rig before it crashed into a rocky beach. An eventual Coast Guard investigation faulted bad decision-making by people in charge but also flagged problems with the Aiviq’s design.
But for all this, the same Coast Guard bought the Aiviq for $125 million late last year.
The United States urgently needs new icebreakers in an era when climate change is bringing increased traffic to the Arctic, including military patrols near U.S. waters by Russia and China. That the first of the revamped U.S. fleet is a secondhand vessel a top Coast Guard admiral once said “may, at best, marginally meet our requirements” is a sign of how long the country has tried and failed to build new ones.
It’s also a sign of how much sway political donors can have over Congress.
Edison Chouest, the Louisiana company that built the icebreaker, has contributed more than $7 million to state and national parties, to political action committees and super PACS, and to members of key House and Senate committees since 2012. Chouest spent most of that period looking to unload the vessel after Shell, its intended user, walked away.
