History
“Breaking Through to New Horizons”
In 1936, the United States Coast Guard received its first official directive to break ice. On December 21, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7521 directing the Coast Guard “to assist in keeping open to navigation by means of icebreaking operations…channels and harbors within the reasonable demands of commerce.” Today, the icebreaking mission of the United States Coast Guard is more important than ever as natural resources and shipping routes become more accessible in the Arctic region.
CGC Storis is the first icebreaker to enter United States military service in over 20 years. Her commissioning heralds a sea change in U.S. Arctic presence. Classified as a medium icebreaker, the new CGC Storis is 360 feet in length, displaces nearly 13,000 tons and has four diesel engines producing 22,500 horsepower able to power the icebreaker through three feet of ice at five knots. She joins CGC Healy and CGC Polar Star in serving the Coast Guard’s needs in the Arctic while work on replacement icebreakers continues.
Storis means “great ice” in Scandinavian. The name is also a nod to the first CGC Storis, a legendary light icebreaker and medium endurance cutter commissioned in 1942 that patrolled for submarines and ran convoys during World War II and led the first American transit of the Northwest Passage. In 1948, CGC Storis was moved to Alaska where it conducted law enforcement, search and rescue, and humanitarian relief for 59 years until its decommissioning in 2007. We are honored to share this storied name, and once again carve Storis into the great ice of the Arctic seas.