Table Of Contentbreaking ice for arctic oil
Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil
The Epic Voyage of the SS Manhattan
through the Northwest Passage
Ross Coen
university of alaska press
Fairbanks
© 2012 University of Alaska Press
P.O. Box 756240
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
Printed on recycled paper in the United States
This publication was printed on paper that meets the minimum requirements for
ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coen, Ross Allen.
Breaking ice for Arctic oil : the epic voyage of the SS Manhattan through the
Northwest Passage / Ross Coen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60223-169-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60223-170-2 (e-book)
1. Petroleum—Transportation—Alaska. 2. Manhattan (Tanker)—History.
3. Tankers—United States—History. 4. Northwest Passage. 5. Oil fields—Alaska.
I. Title.
HE595.P4C64 2012
387.2’45—dc23
2011033205
Contents
color plates follow page 120
Foreword by Lawson Brigham vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Strike at Prudhoe Bay State No. 1 11
Chapter 2. No Cream Puff 27
Chapter 3. Submarines, Blimps, Trains, and Ships 45
Chapter 4. “Bienvenu dans ces eaux. Welcome to Canadian waters.” 59
Chapter 5. A Floating Laboratory 79
Chapter 6. In the Passage 97
Chapter 7. Through the Passage 109
Chapter 8. What Did the Manhattan Prove? 131
Chapter 9. Round-trip 147
Epilogue 157
Endnotes 171
Bibliography 195
Index 205
Foreword
This volume is more than just a great story about a famous ship, the tanker
Manhattan. It is a complex tale told well about Alaska oil politics, the
politics of the Northwest Passage, and sociotechnological risks and choices.
This historical review is very timely, since during August 2011 a Suezmax ice class
tanker, Vladimir Tikhonov, carrying 120,000 tons of bulk liquid, was escorted by two
nuclear icebreakers across Russia’s Northern Sea Route on an experimental voyage.
Vladimir Tikhonov is the largest commercial ship to sail the Northern Sea Route,
and this voyage is clear evidence that globalization of the Arctic is increasing the
use of new marine routes, four decades after the high-profile arctic voyages of the
SS Manhattan.
Many people wonder why this particular ship was chosen for such pioneering
arctic operations. Certainly, Humble Oil did not have time to build a new ship, as
the development of a trans-Alaska pipeline was under way at the same time a marine
option for oil transport was being explored. An existing ship had to be found
quickly and converted to a functional icebreaker. The tanker Manhattan was the
largest U.S. merchant ship at the time and one of the first supertankers, at 106,000
deadweight tons. The ship was large, powerful, and overbuilt (two-inch-thick hull
plating compared with half the thickness used for today’s tankers). Manhattan
also had twin propellers, which were critical for enhanced maneuverability in ice-
covered waters. As author Ross Coen notes, it took a half ton of fuel to move this
massive ship one nautical mile! Economic viability was obviously not Manhattan’s
strong suit. However, sheer mass and high propulsion power are required for effec-
tive icebreaking, and Manhattan had the right mix of both.
There was certainly no shortage of hubris and confidence in Humble’s belief
that they could literally chop Manhattan into segments, send the individual sec-
tions to far-flung shipyards (from Maine to Alabama), and then reassemble the
vii
viii Foreword
pieces at Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Chester, Pennsylvania, to
create an icebreaker. It was remarkable that all this was completed in six months,
just in time for the ship to operate in the Arctic by September 1969. One can specu-
late whether American shipyards could do the same job today. This reconstruction
story has authority and detail, because the author conversed with several principals,
including William O. Gray, Humble’s project officer for the conversion. The story
of this conversion is fascinating and shows how remarkable it was to accomplish so
much in such a short period of time.
It is a little-known fact that the Manhattan did not technically complete a full
voyage of the Northwest Passage. The ship sailed from the U.S. East Coast to the
Beaufort Sea, but not into the Pacific. The Northwest Passage is the name generally
given to the marine routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along the north-
ern coast of North America that span the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Lists of ves-
sels achieving a successful Northwest Passage voyage (even if a voyage took more than
one season, such as Roald Amundsen’s first voyage in 1903–1906 aboard the twenty-
one-meter sloop Gjoa) do not include Manhattan’s 1969 voyage. But this historical
footnote does not diminish any of the ship’s accomplishments or detract from the nar-
rative in this superb book. And it is important to note that Humble was consistent in
its plans to sail Manhattan to Alaska’s North Slope and demonstrate a feasible marine
transport link with the U.S. East Coast—the primary objective was to bring Alaska
crude oil to New York.
The presence of such a large commercial ship smashing through ice in the Cana-
dian Archipelago obviously did not sit well with the Canadian people and their gov-
ernment, then headed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In an indication of things
to come, Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers were sent, without request, to “support”
the operation as a matter of sovereign presence and Canadian stewardship of its Arc-
tic. It is safe to say that the Manhattan’s voyage of 1969 changed the very nature of
governance of the Arctic Ocean. By April 1970 the Parliament in Ottawa had passed
the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, which would be used to regulate marine
activity in the waters of the Canadian Archipelago—all of which we now know to
be declared by Canada as internal waters. The debate continues today as the United
States and other nations disagree with Canada over the legal definition of the waters
that comprise the Northwest Passage (no one disputes the sovereign rights of Canada
over the islands of the Canadian Archipelago). Thus, one of the significant legacies of
Manhattan’s operations in the Arctic is a geopolitical outcome full of policy implica-
tions regarding how to protect the arctic marine environment while exercising the
sovereign rights of an arctic coastal state. These issues are still being sorted out, for
example, by application of the articles of the United Nations Convention on the Law
Foreword ix
of the Sea and ongoing development of a mandatory Polar Code of navigation at the
International Maritime Organization in London.
This book is full of anecdotes and stories about the operational aspects of Manhat-
tan in ice-covered waters. One did catch my attention: it is reported that Manhattan
was ramming at fifteen knots into a massive wall of ice—I suspect most mariners with
icebreaker experience would cringe at this technique! The variability of sea ice condi-
tions (hourly, daily, weekly, seasonally, and annually) in the Canadian Arctic, and the
vagaries of icebreaking alluded to in the narrative, are very real and are well presented.
Perhaps not so remarkable, the Arctic Ocean remains a complex place to operate ships
despite the extraordinary changes in arctic sea ice observed during the past forty years.
Most of the operational challenges the Manhattan faced have not disappeared, and the
Arctic Ocean as an operating theater remains as unforgiving as ever.
It is important that this new volume about such a key event in arctic maritime
history has been published early in the twenty-first century. Ross Coen has done a
great service researching the background of the tanker Manhattan and its forays into
the Arctic. It is a highly relevant story today as the emerging uses of the Arctic Ocean
gain prominence in arctic and global affairs. Enjoy the voyage!
Lawson W. Brigham, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Geography and Arctic Policy,
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Captain, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired) and Commanding Officer,
USCGC Polar Sea (1993–1995)
September 2011
