Storis’ abilities, limits as a private icebreaker revamped for Coast Guard observed by Murkowski during tour
- Mark Sabbatini
- 23 hours ago
- 7 min read
"It's going to be interesting to see how a ship that was designed for something else can be transformed," Alaska senator says
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Since the U.S. Coast Guard now has a used icebreaker they said for years they didn’t want, they’re doing their best to make the most of the acquisition. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, toured the ship on Friday and officers — while pleased to have the refurbished ship available for duties in northern waters — were candid about upgrades they’re making and seeking where possible.
Murkowski knows the ship’s origins well since she participated in its original christening as the Aiviq in 2012 in Louisiana, when it was deployed as a service vessel to help an oil company’s offshore exploration efforts in Alaska. So during Friday’s nearly two-hour tour she invited the frank discussion and shared her own concerns about issues needing addressing before the icebreaker now known as the Storis can be homeported full-time as planned in Juneau.
"I would just ask you to be brutally honest with me with how you feel things are progressing with things like this," Murkowski told Rear Adm. Ralph “Bob” Little, who a month ago became commander of the Coast Guard’s newly named Arctic District that spans Alaska. It was a request that went beyond the Storis, due to previously expressed frustrations getting ships, personnel and infrastructure to Alaska on schedule and on budget.
Little, top Coast Guard officers on the Storis, previous Aiviq officers continuing to serve on the ship during its transition, and other crew did indeed offer polite but unvarnished assessments — with an obvious interest in seeing Murkowski and other officials support funding and other actions addressing needs.
They noted the ship is slow, has limited icebreaking capabilities, and computerized navigational equipment on the bridge is still running software from its former life as Aiviq rather than Coast Guard apps as the newly painted and rebranded Storis.
That imposes limits not only from technology that may be outdated, but also makes it more difficult to interact with other Coast Guard ships, and have personnel and parts that are interchangeable due to standardization, Curt Gookin, the Storis’ executive officer, told Murkowski while on the ship’s bridge.
"Instead of having to support a lot of different navigation systems we can gain efficiency of scale by having a single navigation system," he said.
The Storis also has a different type of propulsion system that is more likely to get jammed up in ice than the Coast Guard’s current and planned new icebreakers, according to officers discussing the ship’s capabilities.
Numerous such concerns are why top Coast Guard leaders long rejected efforts by some members of Congress to acquire the Aiviq, including Adm. Charles Michel telling U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, in 2016, “that vessel is not suitable for military service without substantial refit.”
That substantial refit has started following the Coast Guard’s purchase of the ship late last year for $125 million at the behest of Congress, with Murowski and fellow Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan among those advocating strongly for the acquisition. It is hailed in Coast Guard press releases as "the service’s first new icebreaker in 25 years."
But officials say it will take several years and hundreds of millions of dollars more until the ship and support infrastructure in Juneau are fully ready for a full deployment with about 190 crew members.
Advocates of the acquisition say a primary reason to purchase the icebreaker is so it can serve as a stopgap measure due to lengthy delays in building new Polar Security Cutter icebreakers originally announced in 2018. Those ships are designed for far greater polar region capabilities than the Storis, but plans to complete the first by 2024 have stalled to the point that it is not expected to launch until at least 2030.
"Is it enough? No," Murkowski said in an interview after the tour, when asked if she felt the Storis was an adequate stopgap measure for the next several years. "But is it important to have something? Yes. And so I will say that the money that we're putting into it now to be that bridge (vessel) is going to be money well spent."
Among her concerns — and that of Sullivan and other policymakers — is the U.S. icebreaker fleet is being badly outnumbered and outclassed by growing fleets in Russia and China. The Arctic is considered a critical military and economic region as climate change is making activities such as oil drilling and commercial shipping more accessible.
The so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" signed by President Donald Trump last month contains funding for 17 icebreakers and 21 cutters, although Coast Guard and other officials have said it could take decades for that many to be built. The bill dictating federal spending during the next decade also has received heavy criticism, including some from Murkowski, because the bill also includes heavy cuts to social programs such as Medicaid and tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy.
Murkowski has previously expressed frustration about the Coast Guard’s lack of progress on building the new Polar Security Cutters. But during her post-tour interview, she said the federal funding in the bill and an acceptance of seeking out foreign builders for the ships largely addresses those concerns.
"What's happening now is we're doing what I suggested years ago, which is we're partnering and we're working with the Finns and we're working with the Canadians, and there's some innovative contracting that I think you're going to see, instead of basically the Coast Guard trying to figure out how to build everything by themselves and take on everything themselves," she said. "It's about capacity and, the truth be told, we have not built an icebreaker in this country in over four decades. We don't have that expertise."
"I have some confidence that we've actually recognized that sharing expertise with others is not a bad thing. It's not a sign of weakness. It's maybe that we're going to learn some things by partnering a little bit."
There are concerns beyond ship-related upgrades to the Storis and building new vessels. Murkowski told Little during the Storis tour that she expects greater difficulty than some officials are telling her in removing and replacing an old dock at a Coast Guard station in downtown Juneau, which someday is set to be the ship’s new home. And that’s just part of a larger set of infrastructure concerns that include adequate crew housing and other facilities.
"The dock is one thing just because it's front and center, but it's also the new project," she told Little. "And so again, as important as that is, I don't want us to say everything is directed towards the new project and we forget some of the other priorities that we've been plugging away at."
Murkowski’s tour was far more extensive than the public tours offered Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, both of which attracted about 400 people who got about 15 minutes or so aboard a limited portion of the Storis. The senator spoke with crew in the galley about menu planning (a fusion of traditional southern fare from the ship’s geographic origins and Alaska ingredients such as salmon) and technicians in the recreation room about the ship’s readiness for various duties.
She also spoke with some of the more than 20 people working on the ship due to their association with Edison Chouest, the company that formerly owned the vessel. Eric Durrance, the captain of the Aiviq before its sale, told the senator much of the work during the initial voyage to Alaska involves collaborating with Coast Guard crew to determine what operations the Storis can perform in northern waters and how.
"Any friction anybody thought there might have been really, for the most part, isn't happening from a leadership standpoint," he said. "We all have a mariner background. I think that’s the common language in this situation."
Corey Kerns, the Storis’ commanding officer, told Murkowski the Edison crew’s familiarity with the ship under different operating conditions means they also may take a difficult approach in resolving situations.
"They’re used to solving complex problems the same way that we are," he said. "Sometimes they are even more creative than we give ourselves credit for. So they've been helping us."
The Aiviq experienced problems during its time as an oil industry support ship, which experts and investigations attributed in part to a vessel design that included a rear deck that could be easily swamped, which led to further problems such as damaged mechanical and electrical equipment. That didn’t prevent Young, Sullivan and a few other members of Congress — some of whom received donations from Edison — from trying to pass legislation that included the Coast Guard’s acquisition of the ship.
"It's going to be interesting to see how a ship that was designed for something else can be transformed to be a Coast Guard vessel assigned to Arctic waters, occasionally with ice," Murkowski told Durrance, a sentiment expressed by others during the tour.
But Durrance, responding to a different concern of the senator’s about the U.S. falling behind in icebreakers compared to other countries, said the approach used to put the Storis into service "is leading the way."
"Canada's adopted this model — purchasing commercial icebreakers and repurposing," he said. "It's not an unheard of model that we're doing. It's unique in the Coast Guard's history and the CO’s history, but I think it's the right path to get presence in the market."
The Storis is scheduled to be commissioned in a ceremony that starts at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at the Coast Guard’s downtown facility at 292 Marine Way. Murkowski will not be there due to an appearance elsewhere scheduled before the ship’s ceremony was announced.
The ship is then expected to spend at least a couple of months on an initial assignment in waters further north in Alaska before returning to Seattle for the winter for more upgrades.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
