By Mary Ann Bragg
mbragg@capecodonline.com
Posted Feb. 21, 2015 @ 2:00 am
Updated at 6:43 AM
WOODS HOLE — In Little Harbor early Thursday, a crew of seven Coast Guardsmen were starting their day of ice-breaking on the Bollard tugboat, on loan since Monday to Station Woods Hole from New Haven, Connecticut.
The ice next to the dock appeared thin and glistening but not much farther out were wide expanses of “pancake” ice, flat and about 5 inches thick and covered with snow. On the horizon was one ferry, green and red channel markers and snow-covered buoys that sometimes disappeared underwater. In places the water appeared still, and in other places the current was running fast.
“It’s all drifting ice,” Bollard chief Lance Defoggi said at around 8 a.m. “It’s thick but it’s soft.”
The 65-foot Bollard is one of six harbor ice-breaking tugs in the Northeast district of the Coast Guard, from Maine to northern New Jersey. The 70-ton tug and a larger buoy tender are breaking ice in the southeastern region of New England this winter.
The southeastern Coast Guard stations, such as in Woods Hole, typically don’t have ice-breaking vessels assigned to them, given the open seas, tidal range and fast currents that tend to keep the waters clear of ice, according to Matt Stuck, waterways manager for the Coast Guard's Northeast district. The two vessels have been in Lewis Bay, off Hyannis, in harbors off Vineyard Haven and Nantucket, and in Buzzards Bay and New Bedford. Of the two, the Bollard is the best at the ice, and for this winter that is what’s needed.
The benchmark for ice on the water in New England is the winter of 2004, Coast Guard and local officials said.
“This is the most severe winter we’ve had since then, in terms of ice area coverage and ice thickness,” Stuck said.