"Maneuvers" CGC Mackinaw in the Duluth-Superior Harbor 01/04/2025

The CGC Mackinaw Duluth-Superior Harbor helped break up the quickly growing ice fields.
View of Pilot House - northernimages...

[@NoVista14]

The first ship in Duluth I've seen with fender. Just Majestic, how the Mackinaw plows through the ice.

[@greggorjk8100]

Stay frosty my friends

[@Kickit-50]

I’m trying to figure out what’s going on I thought it was leaving. It looks so beautiful and smooth and then it looks like it was breaking ice and anyone enlighten me here as to what’s happening.

[@danlowe8684]

There are two entrances to the harbor. Video starts with the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw leaving the dock at the Duluth Convention Center. It is then shown at the other end of the harbor at the Superior, WI entry breaking the ice for freighters. Lake Superior rarely freezes over (about 1 in 20 years, historically) but the entries and harbor does. It then returns to the Duluth, MN entry and the Aerial Lift Bridge to dock once again at where it started. The ship also takes care of navigational buoys.

[@Kickit-50]

@ now I understand thank you

[@timlabell]

Maneuvers??? what's up with that? Do they need to keep moving , wasting the taxpayers money on fuel?? I don't know what that all means, but I tell you what, I believe the people on this ship know exactly what they're doing already without waste of money on maneuvers 🙈🙋😮

[@a.b.2849]

Breaking the ice for the ore boats which have a hard time moving in any ice flows.

[@timlabell]

@@a.b.2849 👍 ok

[@DarylLunsford]

So you appreciate that they're trained. It's actual training you're opposed to. Got it.😅

[@user-dc7bj7zd1u]

It has been two light ice years in a row, before this ice year. Most folks cycle through that ship every 2-3 years. Training is absolutely essential in understanding how the ship responds in both soft water and hard water (ice). Hard water training is not achieved in a simulator or adjacent a pier. Safe sailing MACK and thank you to your crew for keeping our shipping lanes clear (and conducting some great training!).

[@NoewerrATall]

This is actually their job. Their job is to keep the shipping lanes and entries passable for commercial shipping. By driving back and forth through the ice to break it up. She's an icebreaker.