Coast Guard icebreaker Storis commissioned

Commissioning of Storis
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan and acting Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday after the 10 August 2025
commissioning ceremony in Juneau

The above photo comes from this 10 August article in the Alaska Beacon which contains much detail about the vessel and its history. Commissioned in 2012 as the Aiviq as a icebreaking anchor handling tug supply vessel to support Shell's planned Arctic drilling operations. It had been built and was owned by Edison Chouest Offshore (familiar from its construction of the Nathaniel B. Palmer and the Laurence M. Gould in Louisiana). After a drill rig that Aiviq was towing broke loose and ran aground off Kodiak Island (good details in this Wikipedia article), Shell abandoned its proposed Arctic operations.

The vessel was then laid up for years...in 2015 Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) proposed that the Coast Guard acquire it. The Coast Guard repeatedly turned down the proposals, saying that Aiviq was unsuitable for military operations and less capable than Healy. Things got more interesting after it was revealed that Edison Chouest Offshore had contributed to Hunter's campaign...along with other investigations into Hunter's misuse of campaign funds (which eventually forced him to resign). Also around this time Edison Chouest was Congressman Dan Young's (R-AK) largest campaign contributor...and Young was supporting the proposed purchase.

After years of layup, Aiviq was chartered by the Australian Antarctic Division for resupply operations in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

Acquisition of the vessel was completed in December 2024 for $125 million, price including reactivation, modifications, training, and sea trials, most of which took place at ECO's shipyard in Tampa. In early June Storis set sail on its maiden voyage from Pascagoula, MS to Juneau via the Panama Canal the first Storis (4 June 2025 gCaptain article). The vessel will be eventually homeported in Juneau after facilities are modified...but for now it will be homeported in Seattle.

Interestingly, the vessel was named after a predecessor, the Storis (left, photo from this naval-history.net timeline) that was commissioned in 1942. After World War II it was homeported in Kodiak. Among its exploits--it was one of 3 vessels that completed the first US transit of the Northwest Passage in 1957. It assisted with rescue operations after the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and participated in cleanup operations after the 1989 Valdez oil spill. It was decommissioned in 2007...the longest serving Coast Guard icebreaker.