Military Sealift Command-chartered
container ship MV Green Wave departed McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Feb. 25, after
delivering more than 6.8 million pounds of vital supplies in support of Operation Deep
Freeze. ODF is the annual Joint Task Force Support For Antarctica mission to
resupply the remote scientific outpost.
Green Wave followed MSC-chartered
tanker MT Maersk Peary, which brought more than 6.3 million gallons of crucial
diesel, gasoline and jet fuel to McMurdo Station Jan. 28-31.
During this single
mission, MSC ships deliver 100 percent of the fuel and about 80 percent of the
supplies that researchers and support personnel who live and work across
Antarctica need to survive and work over the course of a year.
“MSC’s Operation Deep
Freeze support is truly a ‘no failure accepted’ mission,” said Tim McCully, MSC
Pacific deputy commander. “Without the fuel, food, and other support materials
delivered by our chartered ships, researchers could not continue their
operations through the brutal Antarctic winter.”
An MSC-chartered dry
cargo ship and tanker have made the challenging voyage to Antarctica every year
since the station was established in 1955.
Although Maersk Peary
and Green Wave have hulls designed to withstand the pressure of ice, both ships
were escorted through a 15-mile ice channel – in places more than 13 feet thick
– by an icebreaker that carved a safe path to the station.
Green Wave arrived at McMurdo Station Feb. 13 with cargo
loaded on board in Port Hueneme, California in early January, to include
supplies like food and research equipment.
Typically, the MSC cargo ship
off-loads its valuable cargo at a 500-foot ice pier that juts out from the
Antarctic coast. This year’s mission was one of the more challenging in the
last two decades due to unfavorable weather conditions that made the ice pier at
McMurdo unusable for dry cargo operations.
In lieu of the ice pier,
Green Wave carried a disassembled modular causeway system from the U.S. Army’s
331st Transportation Company (Causeway). Once safely anchored at McMurdo
Station, 41 Army personnel spent three days assembling the interlocking pieces
of the causeway and powered modular warping tugs, which were craned off the
ship individually and built into a floating dock capable of handling the ship’s
load.
“The members of the 331st
Transportation Company really stepped up to this challenge,” said Timothy
Pickering, cargo project officer at MSC headquarters. “The talented men and
women in the unit deployed this very unique capability, allowing our ship to
accomplish its vital mission.”
After the causeway was ready, approximately 60 Navy Cargo
Handling Battalion One personnel worked around-the-clock for eight days to off-load
Green Wave’s cargo, then load the ship with 391 pieces of cargo for
transportation off the continent, including ice core samples carried back to
the United States in sub-zero freezer containers. The ship also took on trash and
recyclable materials for disposal. Cargo operations ended Feb. 24, and Green
Wave is slated to arrive back at Port Hueneme March 26.
MSC operates
approximately 110 noncombatant,
civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships, conduct specialized
missions, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and
move military cargo and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces and coalition
partners.
