STURGEON BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Walking through the hallways of Mobile Bay, Lt. Commander Collin Tuttle shows where the crew of thirty spend some of their time on the vessel.
Knowing that during this week off, they will continue to pave a path for some of the ships that go through the Great Lakes and the northern part of the bay of Green Bay.
“This January, I think we did 23 escorts total, mostly in and out of Green Bay and Escanaba, and now that things have slowed down a little bit and the ice has thickened up a little bit, we have closed the southern part of Green Bay,” Lt. Commander Tuttle stated.
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Tuttle says he works the close, rather than spending most time on the bridge.
“(The bridge) is where we send our navigational watches; this is where my ship drivers are driving from, then we also have an officer of the deck who is deciding how we do ice breaking tactics,” Lt. Commander Tuttle added.
At nearly 40 years old, Mobile Bay has been sent through the Great Lakes and has the ability to cut through the ice with ease.
Even with the thick layers of ice that can occur throughout the winter.
“We are designed to be able to continuously break ice that is about two feet thick, but we will go pretty slow at that speed. We will maybe make like 3 knots going through about two feet of ice. If we do get stopped, we can go back and ram an ice so we can force our way through.”
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This is the crew’s recent off week, and won’t have until March, when hopefully some of the ice will be melted.
It gives the crew time to rest, perform maintenance on the ship, and reflect on how special a job they have.
“It’s a really unique mission, it’s a lot of fun to drive through ice, most people who drive boats spend their time trying not hit things, we get a job where we intentionally get to hit things, we get to use a lot of power, we get to navigate really close to some big boats that get stuck in the ice, so from a ship driving perspective, it’s amazing to be out there.”
Tuttle says this is a reminder for all of the ice fishers who may be out on the water – to move or bring in their shelters to make sure they are not impacted when the cutter is out on the ice.
