Storis icebreaker reaches Seattle; Coast Guard commissioning ceremony in Juneau scheduled Aug. 10
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jul 16
- 2 min read
The Juneau icebreaker has reached Seattle — but won’t reach its eventual new homeport for a few more weeks until a commissioning ceremony that as of now is scheduled Aug. 10, according to U.S. Coast Guard and city officials.
The Storis reached Seattle on July 11, the latest stop on a maiden Coast Guard voyage that began June 4 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship passed through the Panama Canal before turning north toward Juneau — and after next month’s ceremony will continue further north for an initial limited deployment in the Arctic.
"Storis will likely be joining CGC Healy in the Arctic District marking the first time in at least two decades that the U.S. Coast Guard dispatched two icebreakers to the Polar region simultaneously," the maritime news website gCaptain reported Wednesday. "While the Coast Guard has in the past operated two icebreakers at the same time in Antarctica, most recently Polar Sea and Polar Star, its Arctic presence has been more limited. Healy is currently operating in the Bering Strait as part of its annual Arctic science mission."
The Storis, originally built in 2012 as a privately operated ship known as the Aiviq, was purchased by the Coast Guard last year and is undergoing extensive modifications to make it ready for full mission deployment. Coast Guard officials have said it will be several years before the ship is fully ready to be homeported in Juneau with an estimated full crew of 190. It has been assigned an initial crew of 60 and is scheduled to serve limited seasonal patrols in Alaska and undergo further service work in the Lower 48 until homeporting in Juneau is feasible.
The commissioning ceremony had been scheduled for Aug 8, according to "The Tide Line" newsletter published by Juneau’s Docks and Harbors department. But Port Director Carl Uchytil said Tuesday that date has been moved to Aug. 10.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
