Ice season really over now

[Guest]

Ice concentration in Lake Superior is 28% today, forecast to be down to 12.7% in five days. Here is a chart from yesterday: http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/special/ ... 9color.jpg

[wlbblw]

It was weird how it ended here. Boats were getting stuck in the ice off Buffalo right up until they started to pull out the Niagara River ice boom, & then literally overnight it all flushed itself out & was gone.

[Truwriter]

I saw at 1400 hrs that the Hollyhock was now out of Superior and headed south, maybe toward homeport of Port Huron. We know because of the collision while leading convoy that the Hock will go back to drydock for repairs. Cannot imagine the amount of maintenance each one of the CG boats will need from this ice season. Brutal cold is hard on machinery and add the constant pounding of breaking heavy ice to that. Had to be even harder on the smaller vessels. I saw online that the USCG has advertised for bids on repairs on the Hollyhock. Shipyards in the lakes may be busier this summer than usual. Hope it is done locally.

[Guest]

Operation Taconite is still ongoing.

[Guest]

I agree. The CG boys did a lot of work but, it was Mother Nature who dictated when we could start the shipping season !

[Truwriter]

Its wierd that ice season really just ended this past week, with the full opening of Superior's ports. Ice Operations was amazing this year and I ended up focusing on the exploits of the CG cutters. What a job they all did, working 3 times as many hours this year and dealing with incredible ice. The mighty Mac is spectacular but other CG "assets" did great work too. The Hollyhock had an eventful year and worked in Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior doing ice and convoy duty, ending up in Superior working with the Canadian cutters and giving the Mac a chance to stand down. The Hollyhock is stll there. The smaller CG boats like Neah Bay worked their tails off sometimes working in tandem with larger cutters to move the lakers through. Days for breaking, night time stand downs for maintenance and back to work. The men and women of the US and Canadian Coast Guard did their duty and deserve our thanks. Without them the economic impact of freakish ice season would have been even worse.