Domestic Icebreaking Operations—Part 1

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by LT Benjamin Morgan, mobility and ice operations, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Maritime Transportation Systems.

Domestic icebreaking operations are important for maritime mobility and support our national transportation infrastructure.

Operations include:

• establishing and maintaining tracks (paths through the ice) in connecting waterways during the winter navigation season,
• escorting vessels to ensure their transit is not impeded by ice,
• freeing vessels that become beset,
• clearing/relieving ice jams,
• removing obstructions or hazards to navigation,
• advising mariners of current ice and waterways conditions.

This vital icebreaking mission is executed domestically by one heavy icebreaker, nine ice-breaking tugs, 11 small harbor tugs, and 12 ice-capable buoy-tending vessels.

International Icebreaking Cooperation

In addition to U.S. Coast Guard assets, the Canadian Coast Guard operates two icebreakers on the Great Lakes.

The USCG and Canadian Coast Guard keep each other advised on the location and status of icebreaking facilities/assets and coordinate operations to keep critical waterways open for commerce. A cooperative agreement between our two nations allows the assets from one country to conduct icebreaking operations in the territorial waters of the other, as necessary.

East Coast Icebreaking

Along the East Coast, icebreaking generally occurs to facilitate deliveries of home heating oil, critical supplies in isolated communities, and ferry services in its busiest ports.

During January and February, East Coast ports can receive more than 15 million tons of petroleum products, food, and other cargo. Nearly 70 percent of the home heating oil in the U.S. is used in the Northeast, and 90 percent must travel by barge.

The Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw breaks ice in tandem with the Coast Guard Cutter Neah Bay on Lake St. Clair during Operation Coal Shovel. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Ensign Guillermo Colom.

Find out about icebreaking on the Great Lakes in part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

 

Visual Aids to Navigation: Dispelling aid availability myths—PART 2

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Robert Trainor, aids to navigation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Navigation Systems.

Aids to Navigation Discrepancies

Aid availability is impacted by unplanned outages, or ATON discrepancies, and the Coast Guard’s ability to respond to and correct them.

In 2005, the Coast Guard specified maximum maintenance intervals of 36 months for buoys and lighted beacons and 60 months for unlighted beacons. Specific maintenance intervals for individual aids are determined after considering component reliability and service life, environmental factors, wildlife, vandalism, and other factors.

The USCG uses a discrepancy response factor—a numerical indicator measuring the criticality of the discrepant ATON—to prioritize response. The higher the number, the more critical the aid is to safe navigation, and hence the higher the priority for response and correction.

 An aids to navigation team works on a small buoy. USCG photo.

The annual recurring funding for establishing, maintaining, and operating the U.S. visual aids to navigation system is approximately $300 million. Ninety percent of that goes to personnel, ATON servicing platform operations and maintenance, and indirect support costs.

The remaining $30 million finances everything that either produces or supports an ATON signal (repair, maintenance, and replacement costs of buoys; buoy mooring systems; beacon structure components; optics; power systems; and day signals).

This funding level has been static over the past 10 years, with slight adjustments for consumer price index considerations. During that period, aid availability fluctuated by as much as 1.28% in one year. In the years of low aid availability (2005 and 2006), the ATON mission was allocated supplemental funding to reconstitute the visual aids to navigation system in those waterways disrupted by a series of major hurricanes.

Aid Availability History

The concept of aid availability became a topic of international interest in the mid-1970s when significant numbers of lighthouses were being automated. The Coast Guard implemented aid availability as a performance measure in the 1990s and established an overall strategic aid availability goal of 99.7 percent.

Since waterways have a variety of traffic patterns and risk levels, the Coast Guard assigned each of its aids to navigation to one of three categories based on the critical nature of the aid, the type and volume of marine traffic, the waterway configuration, and environmental considerations.

• Category 1: Vital navigational significance – aid availability goal = 99.8 percent.
• Category 2: Important navigational significance – aid availability goal = 99 percent.
• Category 3: Necessary navigational significance – aid availability goal = 97 percent.

Certain anomalies, such as major weather events, can have a short-term negative impact on aid availability. The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) recommends tracking aid availability for three continuous years to accurately determine trends.

IALA also recommends that the minimum aid availability for any aid should not fall below 95 percent and that consideration should be given to discontinuing or replacing aids to navigation that consistently fall below that threshold.

              

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.

Visual Aids to Navigation: Dispelling aid availability myths—PART 1

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Robert Trainor, aids to navigation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Navigation Systems.

Aid availability for the United States visual aids to navigation system is calculated monthly by the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate’s Visual Aids to Navigation Division.

Frequent updates and convenient data presentation lead many waterways managers to assume that aid availability provides a comprehensive assessment of the health and effectiveness of aids to navigation (ATON) in their waterways as well as the efficiency of their ATON service delivery units. This mistaken assumption has perpetuated the following aid availability myths:

• Aid availability is proportional to recurring ATON funding levels.
• Aid availability provides an accurate assessment of an ATON service delivery unit’s efficiency.
• Unscheduled maintenance of ATON service delivery platforms (cutters and boats) or emergency diversion to other mission areas directly impacts aid availability.
• Aid availability is primarily impacted by ATON component reliability.

Dispelling the Myths

Myth—Aid availability is proportional to recurring ATON funding levels. This is predicated on the assumption that recurring funding levels could be reduced if aid availability goals were lowered. The efficiency by which the USCG corrects ATON discrepancies directly impacts aid availability, so lowering aid availability goals would suggest that the Coast Guard should reduce its efficiency.

Furthermore, being less proficient at periodic maintenance or ATON discrepancy response would likely result in a much greater expense when the discrepancy is eventually corrected.

In addition, timely response and correction of an ATON discrepancy could help prevent a much costlier incident, such as a vessel collision or grounding.

Myth—Aid availability provides an accurate assessment of an ATON service delivery unit’s efficiency. This myth equates a falling or raising aid availability with the efficiency of an ATON service delivery unit. While a service delivery unit’s efficiency could certainly impact aid availability, there are a variety of other factors that could have a greater influence.

Myth—Unscheduled maintenance of ATON service delivery platforms or emergency diversion to other mission areas impacts aid availability. The USCG’s ATON multi-tiered maintenance strategy provides reserve capacity, including primary and secondary service delivery units, for these and other contingencies.

 Myth—Aid availability is primarily impacted by ATON component reliability. This assumes that an increase in ATON component failures (power systems, optics, buoys, mooring chain, dayboards, etc.) has a direct impact on the aid availability rate. However, an analysis of discrepancy data over the past 10 years does not support this assumption.

While component failures certainly influence discrepancy rates and may influence aid availability, the data does not support a direct correlation.

A temporary lighted buoy marks the wreckage of a lighted beacon, which was damaged after a vessel allision.

The Continuing Mission

To appropriately focus their resources, waterway managers must carefully measure the state of the aids to navigation systems under their purview. Aid availability rate is just one of the tools they use.

We must be mindful, however, to consider this information in perspective and in conjunction with other metrics to accurately assess overall waterway ATON health and effectiveness.

PERCENT OF DISCREPANCIES CAUSED BY COMPONENT FAILURE.

Find out more in part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

Subscribe online at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/subscribe.asp.