March 29, 2024
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Icebreaker has its work cut out Cold snap causes ice-floe problems in waterways around region

Breaking ice on the Penobscot River has begun to resemble an exercise in the ridiculous this week.

On one occasion, after one of the U.S. Coast Guard’s three ice-breaking vessels cleared the river up to Bangor, then turned to head south, the crew encountered a frozen surface before they were halfway back to Bucksport.

It has been that kind of winter, said Ensign Gabe Somma of the Coast Guard’s Group Southwest Harbor.

Another ice-breaking mission cleared the river, only to have the vessel’s crew find ice 3 inches thick the next morning.

Some Down East harbors have loaded up with ice floes, Somma said Thursday.

Last week, seven people became stranded on Bartlett Island on the west side of Mount Desert Island and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. The seven were able to navigate to the island earlier in the day, but when it came time for the return trip, they found their small boat blocked by ice.

“That’s been one of our big problems,” Somma said, as a wind shift will force chunks of ice from one side of a harbor to the other where boats have clustered, trying to avoid the floes.

“We’ve got ice spotters who [alert] us and report the thickness of the ice, and ice movements,” Somma said.

The Coast Guard monitors certain key commercial waterways, such as the Penobscot River and Searsport Harbor, but it also takes requests from fishermen and boat owners whose vessels are blocked by ice.

This winter, the phones have been ringing steadily with requests for assistance, Somma said.

The Thunder Bay, a 140-foot icebreaker, and the 65-foot Tackle, both based in Rockland, and the Southwest Harbor-based Bridle, a 65-foot vessel, typically alternate weeks in service. But with the extended freeze, two of the boats were put to work in tandem.

When clearing the river or a harbor, the crews use the tides to help their effort.

“You try to work with the ebb,” Somma said, letting the tide carry away the broken ice.

Many of the younger officers have been in Maine for just a few years, he said, and have not experienced the kind of winter the state is seeing this year.

“A lot of the guys are excited,” Somma said, after seeing little ice-breaking action last year.

“They’re glad to be out there smashing it,” he said.

Don Therrien, captain of the Kelley ‘D, which fishes from South Addison, said Thursday wind-driven ice has blocked the wharf that he and others use to load and unload. The iced-in wharf adds 90 minutes to his twice-weekly loading and unloading.

Therrien said he wasn’t sure whether any request had been made to clear the harbor.

Petty Officer David Herman at Rockland’s Coast Guard station said conditions have been better from Searsport south to Port Clyde.

“It freezes up a little in the morning, but it breaks right up,” he said.

On Thursday morning, one of the icebreakers was in Stonington Harbor. On Monday, an icebreaker will be sent to Jellison Cove near Hancock to clear out any other harbors facing ice problems, Somma said.

Moderating temperatures expected this weekend may ease the freezing, but even when the thermometer has approached 32 degrees during the day, it has fallen back into the single digits at night, Somma said.


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