Undersea Research Center To Look For Sunken Whaling Ships

A whaling fleet of nearly 40 vessels from New Bedford, Massachusetts, was caught in a violent storm off Icy Cape, Alaska, in 1871. More than 30 whaling ships became trapped in the ice and eventually sunk. Crews were able to walk across the ice to shore, where some found refuge in Alaskan Native villages for the winter. Other crewmembers returned to Hawaii aboard the few remaining undamaged ships.

Operations to find and assess the sunken whaling ships will be based aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star. Side-scan sonar, which has a sensor towed by a ship, will be used to locate the position of the sunken vessels on the seafloor. A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) provided by NASA and equipped with stereoscopic video cameras and control mechanisms as utilized on the Mars lander will be deployed to document the condition of the whaling ships.

The West Coast and Polar Regions Center, based at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, is one of six regional National Undersea Research Program centers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Other organizations participating in the Icy Cape project include the U.S. Navy, the Minerals Management Service, the National Park Service and the Alaska State Historic Preservation Office.