Coastguard Rescues Lakers Stuck in Ice

Press Release March 28, 2013

The Cutter Mackinaw comes ahead and creates a track through the ice for the motor vessel James R. Barker (which had become stuck in brash ice) to follow in the vicinity of the Johnson Point Turn in the lower St. Marys River. Photo: USCG

Three icebreaking cutters worked together to keep traffic moving through the St. Mary’s River.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, a 240-foot icebreaker homeported in Cheboygan, Mich., along with Coast Guard Cutter Alder, a 225-foot buoy tender with ice-breaking capabilities homeported in Duluth, Minn., and the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Samuel Risley assisted vessels in the ice-bound river.

The Mackinaw, CCGS Samuel Risley along with the Coast Guard Cutter Alder, freed the motor vessel Manitowoc from an ice plug in the vicinity of Whitefish Bay.