Tag Archives: M/V Aiviq

USCG’s new ‘Icebreaker’ Proving Herself

Posted on by 6 comments

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Storis (WAGB 21)

The USCGC Storis (WAGB-21) is scheduled to return to the service’s icebreaker barn in Seattle after a 36-day, 4,800-mile patrol in the Bering Sea, her second since entering service last August.

The 360-foot/15,000-ton third-hand former oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq seems to be proving herself even though she is really more icebreaker-adjacent, being a Polar A3 class ship capable of busting through just one meter of ice continuously.

As noted by CG PAO, Storis’s recent patrol “refined the crew’s ice piloting and navigational skills, developed baseline performance parameters for ice operations, and conducted a first-in-kind re-fueling exercise with USCGC Waesche (WMSL 751).”

The two vessels executed a pierside Fueling at Sea (FAS) exercise in Dutch Harbor during the patrol, essentally showing Storis could be used as an offshore fuel-replenishment barge, demonstrating the breaker’s “unique capability within the National Fleet to sustain forces in the high-latitudes—extending asset time on station, maximizing the nation’s operational footprint, and ensuring the Coast Guard remains always ready in the High North.”

Interesting.

Newest U.S. Icebreaker Completes First Patrol

Posted on by One comment

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Storis (WAGB 21) uses dynamic positioning to maintain its position near the Johns Hopkins Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska, Aug. 5, 2025. The Storis is equipped with Dynamic Positioning Class 2 capabilities, which provide redundancy and ensure station-keeping even with the failure of a critical component, such as a generator or thruster. (U.S. Coast Guard photo 250805-G-GX036-1007 by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

The Seattle-based USCGC Storis (WAGB 21), the third-hand 360-foot former oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq, is officially a U.S. government-flagged medium polar icebreaker. She just wrapped her 112-day inaugural patrol, which included keeping tabs on a series of five Chinese research ships bopping along over the extended U.S. shelf.

She also visited Juneau, where she was commissioned on 10 August, which will eventually be her home, the first time a government-owned icebreaker was forward based in Alaska since her namesake, the original WWII-era USCGC Storis (WMEC-38), was retired in 2007.

As detailed by USCG PAO: 

Storis departed Pascagoula, Mississippi, on June 1, transited the Panama Canal, and the Pacific Ocean enroute to conduct its first Arctic patrol operating north of the Bering Strait to control, secure, and defend the northern U.S. border and maritime approaches.

Storis operated under the Coast Guard Arctic District, supporting Operation Frontier Sentinel to counter foreign malign influences in or near Alaskan and U.S. Arctic waters.

In early September, Storis entered the ice for the first time as a Coast Guard cutter to relieve Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) and monitor the Chinese-flagged research vessels Jidi and Xue Long 2.

Upon returning to Seattle, Storis will enter a six-week training period where the ship and the crew will undergo major training evolutions, system and program recapitalization, and a two-week underway phase with scheduled engagements in Victoria, Canada.