By James Heinz
The captain of the USCGC MACKINAW is a remarkable woman on a remarkable ship. Captain Kristen Serumgard commands a ship that, she says, has the fourth largest electric power plant in the state of Michigan, her home base. It’s unique among military vessels.
I caught up with her in Chicago where she spoke at the 21st annual Christmas Tree Ship ceremony on December 4. The MACKINAW had just delivered a load of 1,200 evergreen trees for the city’s poor.
The MACKINAW is only the second military icebreaker on the Great Lakes. The first MACKINAW served until 2006 from her home port of Cheboygan, Michigan, when she was retired and turned into a museum ship in Mackinac City, Michigan.
The history of Coast Guard icebreaking on the Great Lakes dates to the 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order tasking the service with breaking ice to keep ships moving all winter. Until then there was no icebreaking and ships were often trapped in the ice for weeks or even months. It is unclear what ships the Coast Guard used to fulfill Roosevelt’s original mandate. In response to the needs of World War II, the Toledo Shipbuilding Company in 1944 launched the first custom built icebreaker designed especially for duty on the Great Lakes. Because of wartime manpower shortages, the builders turned to woman power to build the ship, hiring over one-hundred women to build her.
Because she was built specifically for Great Lakes service, the first MACKINAW was too large to get out of the lakes using the St. Lawrence Seaway. She was built similar to the US Navy’s oceangoing Wind class, but was shorter and wider so she could handle the shallow drafts of the Great Lakes. Like the Wind class, she was shorter for the amount of power she generated and had a cut-away forefoot, rounded bottom, and fore, aft and side heeling tanks.
The first MACKINAW, registration WAGB-83, weighed 5,100 tons and was 290 feet long, 74.3 feet wide, and drew 19.5 feet of water. The ship had six, ten-cylinder diesel engines that drove electric generators which powered two stern and one bow propeller. Electric propulsion was chosen as it was more controllable and less vulnerable to damage.
Her replacement is the current MACKINAW, WLB-330, which was launched in 2005 at Marinette Marine. She displaces 3,500 tons, is 240 feet long, 58.5 feet wide, and draws 16 feet of water and has a crew of 55. Unlike the first MACKINAW, she is more than just an icebreaker and is also used as a buoy tender. The ship can deploy an oil boom as well as perform traditional search and rescue missions. She is a remarkable ship.
All of this requires a great deal of electric power. Commander Serumgard said that when the ship’s diesel engines and generators are fully powered up, they generate 9.3 megawatts of electrical power.
Before becoming commanding officer of the MACKINAW, Serumgard served as commander of the International Ice Patrol from 2017 to 2020, according to her introduction at the Christmas Tree Ship commemoration and from a resume on informaconnect.com. “Her prior afloat tours include Commanding Officer USCGC FIR (WLB 213) and USCGC HOLLYHOCK (WLB 214), Executive Officer in USCGC ORCAS (WPB 1327) and USCGC HOLLYHOCK, and Deck Watch Officer in USCGC POLAR SEA (WAGB 11),” the website reports. “Shore tours include Chief, Aids to Navigation (ATON) and Icebreaker Capabilities Division in the Office of Cutter Forces (CG-7513) and Chemistry Instructor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.”
Serumgard holds a bachelor’s degree in marine environmental science from the USCG Academy and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina. She also has a Master of Unlimited Tonnage Upon the Oceans Merchant Mariner License.
She told me that like her predecessor, the current MACKINAW is also electrically driven, but in a way that is unique among US military vessels. Diesel engines drive electric generators that supply electric power to what are called Azipod Azimuthing Propulsors (AAP). AAP replaces the traditional propellers and rudders with pods that hang down from the hull at the stern. These pods each have two sets of rotating blades mounted on them. The pods can be rotated in any direction in the horizontal plane to provide thrust in any direction. This, and a bow thruster, eliminates the need for a rudder. As a result, MACKINAW does not have a traditional ship’s wheel.
According to Wikipedia, “Primary advantages are maneuverability, electrical efficiency, better use of ship space, and lower maintenance costs. Ships with azimuth thrusters do not need tugboats to dock, though they may still require tugs to maneuver in difficult places.
“The major disadvantage of azimuth drive systems is that a ship (with it) maneuvers differently from one with the standard and propeller and rudder configuration, necessitating specialized pilot training. Another disadvantage is they increase the draught of the ship.
“The pod-variety, where the electromotor is located outside the hull, puts greater demands on the quality of the seal around the propeller-shaft. This is because any leakages of sea water will short circuit the electromotor.”
However, according to Serumgard, the pods are extremely useful in the icebreaking role. Most icebreakers have a special bow that rides up on any ice the ship encounters, and uses the weight of the ship to break down through the ice, a process she calls “brute force.” Instead, controlling the ship from its aft conning station, the pods can be used literally to chew up ice, like a giant Cuisinart. This allows the ship to move close to a freighter trapped in the ice.
The pods can also be turned sideways to blow broken chunks of ice out of the path of stranded freighters. This means the ship can break ice equally well in both directions.
With this technology, the MACKINAW, Wikipedia states, “can continuously proceed through fresh water ice up to 32 inches (81 cm) thick at 3 knots or 14 inches (36 cm) at 10 knots. She can also break smooth, continuous ice up to 42 inches (107 cm) thick through ramming.”
Serumgard said that Great Lakes icebreaking operations are divided into two sectors: Operation Taconite and Operation Coal Shovel. Operation Taconite covers Lake Superior, the St. Marys River, and northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Operation Coal Shovel covers southern Lake Huron, the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, and Lake Erie.
She said that the Coast Guard has nine icebreaking assets on the Great Lakes: Six 140-foot tugs, two 225-foot buoy tenders, and the 240-foot Great Lakes heavy ice breaker, the MACKINAW. Canada has two icebreaking ships. These assets are coordinated and assigned as needed; Operation Taconite is coordinated by the US Coast Guard and Operation Coal Shovel by the Canadians.
The MACKINAW’s primary assignment is to support Operation Taconite, but she will respond to help with Operation Coal Shovel. She is assisted in keeping the St. Marys River channel open by the USCGC KATMAI BAY. They also keep a channel open and conduct ship escorts through Whitefish Bay to help ships through pressure ridges or windrows of ice chunks that pile up by the wind.
The Coast Guard does not remove all the ice from the St. Marys River. They just cut a channel. The intact ice on either side of the channel helps the lake freighters remain in the channel and to “ride the bow” to get around the turns. This is referred to as “grooming” the turns, or the areas where the bow and stern of the freighters will move.
When the ice breaks up in the spring, the Coast Guard changes tactics and breaks up all the ice so that the strong current of the river will flush it out.
Photo at top of page: Captain Kristen Serumgard commander of the MACKINAW, Chicago, December 4, 2021. Photo by James Heinz.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
