The Coast Guard’s medium icebreaker Healy is undergoing a maintenance overhaul at Vigor Industrial, Seattle, after arriving at the Harbor Island shipyard in early January.
The $7.3 million contract includes sea valve renewal and overhaul, bow thruster modifications, ballast tank and underwater hull paint preservation, and various machinery overhauls.
The 420’x82’x29’ Healy will be at the yard, just across Seattle harbor from the icebreaker’s usual berth, through June.
The ship is one of just two U.S. government icebreakers. The 399’x83’x31 heavy icebreaker Polar Star is now on its annual deployment to resupply the U.S. science mission in Antarctica, where it arrived at McMurdo Station Jan. 17.
The Healy is the younger ship, delivered to the Coast Guard in 1999, compared to the 42-year-old Polar Star, which Coast Guard officials say now has major issues with its aging systems. The service is intent on building a new fleet of at least six icebreakers through the 2020s.
