Photos: Polar Star Arrives at McMurdo Station

My brother was on that ship

It was better known as the "Polish Star" back in the day due to numerous performance problems and breakdowns. I was there when it showed up on it's maiden trip to McMurdo. They had a number of tech reps on board. Major flaw was overtorquing the main journals as the mounts couldn't handle the stress of more than 50-60% power. So they got hung up on 12 foot ice. I freed them up with some explosives work. The Glacier and Northwind were there to finish the work. The tech reps had strain gauges everywhere so the data was essential to figuring out the problem. The Polar Sea was under construction hence got the redesigned mounts in the first time. The Star went into the yards for an upgrade the following year. I believe that cost got hung on the contractor. The unique thing at the time was the alloy steel which was much stronger and much thinner than that of previous breakers. It was much larger than the earlier ships.