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Hey Brent is this your vessel?

We are just hanging out waiting for ships to take down the river. Should be back in action tomorrow. Primary mission is ice breaking, not SAR. Search and Rescue is always our secondary mission.
 
We are just hanging out waiting for ships to take down the river. Should be back in action tomorrow. Primary mission is ice breaking, not SAR. Search and Rescue is always our secondary mission.

This is interesting.... Who coordinates all of this? You waiting for vessels seeking passage and vessels waiting for escort.
 
Hey Craig, We have an ice office that works with the USA and the shipping companies to establish a passage plan. The shipping companies will run all year depending on the ship construction (ice strengthening) and who needs what. Salt comes from Goderich for all the roads, we have fuel and lubes from various refineries, coal, iron ore,cement, asphalt etc all moving up and down the river system and across the lakes. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to get those millions of dollars in cargo through the ice.

We sail today at 1030 for destination unknown …….

Sometimes we just get a call from a ship that has decided to head out and we make sure it gets going. (Free up the ice around it).

Flood control is closer to spring time and all the people who decided to build a house on a flood plane get excited…..
 
Brent,
I thought you were retired.
Do you get called in by the CG for duty occasionally ?
 
Yep - 2.75 shifts left :p
before you disembark, can you take a ton of picss of details, or is that forbidden?

I'm finalizing my plans for a wm lyon mackenzie model, going to fabricate a fiberglass mould to make a fiberglass hull. But after that your ship would be far better build choice than the old US coast guard ice breaker I'd been planning to build after that.
 
Wishing you a few ‘calm seas’ to your port of call.
Where you are . . . the water is still close.

I recall an ice fishing trip with some buddies,
‘years ago’ to Honey Harbour.

Probably near your shop.
 
I've been watching this ice breaking operation since I posted this. Is this ping pong between Sarnia and Detroit a 24/7 thing or just during daylight hours? I'm surprised once opened up things freeze up this fast?
 
@YYCHM : so as the weather gets nicer - especially here in southern Canada, the ice breaks off in Huron and along the river and starts jamming things up.

Our mission is to escort the ships that are heading down or up and make sure they don’t pull an “Ever Given” and plug up the river system.

From the politics end of things the shipping companies pay for ice escort services (not huge amounts and I don’t get any of it) and this means we have to give them their monies worth - ice being bad or not. So we will ping and pong until something thaws fully or flooding starts somewhere and we have to clear a blockage.

Once we are released from the river system we should be up in T-Bay after the locks open (end of March)
 
@YYCHM : so as the weather gets nicer - especially here in southern Canada, the ice breaks off in Huron and along the river and starts jamming things up.

Our mission is to escort the ships that are heading down or up and make sure they don’t pull an “Ever Given” and plug up the river system.

From the politics end of things the shipping companies pay for ice escort services (not huge amounts and I don’t get any of it) and this means we have to give them their monies worth - ice being bad or not. So we will ping and pong until something thaws fully or flooding starts somewhere and we have to clear a blockage.

Once we are released from the river system we should be up in T-Bay after the locks open (end of March)
Oh oh, it is now in the vernacular.... they shall never live down the shame
 
@Brent H I've been monitoring the ship since posting this thread. You seem to spend a lot of time docked in Windsor or Sarnia. Is the crew allowed to leaved the ship when docked?
 
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Hey Craig,

We are still riding the Covid bubble We can go for a walk or a jog but no fraternization with the public or uptown or shopping etc.

Ice is pretty much gone - hopefully for the season and Covid seems to be wrapping up just after we get off next week.

Tomorrow we are going up into Lake Huron to collect water samples for the University of Windsor. Should be a fun go and change of pace.

The run back and forth is a bit crazy but the ice this year was here and gone quite quickly. We spend more time at the dock because, well, saving fuel is not a bad thing especially at the costs these days. In the past the cowboys would go looking for any ice they could find - not so typical these days. We are also making repairs to some stuff.
 
Hey Craig,

We are still riding the Covid bubble We can go for a walk or a jog but no fraternization with the public or uptown or shopping etc.

Ice is pretty much gone - hopefully for the season and Covid seems to be wrapping up just after we get off next week.

Tomorrow we are going up into Lake Huron to collect water samples for the University of Windsor. Should be a fun go and change of pace.

The run back and forth is a bit crazy but the ice this year was here and gone quite quickly. We spend more time at the dock because, well, saving fuel is not a bad thing especially at the costs these days. In the past the cowboys would go looking for any ice they could find - not so typical these days. We are also making repairs to some stuff.
I’m gonna send the old man up with the rotisserie, not exactly related to anything in this thread but I’m replying while I think of it

Let me know when you’re off this tour and I’ll figure it out, he’s not quite ready to start driving the summer work truck yet

And, it’s more so the owner of the rotisserie gets all the pieces in the right place, plus he knows how it gets put together

He’ll enjoy the roadtrip so don’t fuss over that part, he’ll tell you how to do everything the right way and he’ll also inform you how much you’re doing things wrong. It’s fun you just gotta get good at telling him he’s number 1 :D
 
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