# Icebreakers? **URL:** \ **Category:** United States Coast Guard\ **Created:** [October 2, 2025, 6:51pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503 "2025-10-02T18:51:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ChaplainDarrell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/chaplaindarrell/32/41200_2.png) [@ChaplainDarrell](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ChaplainDarrell)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/21 "2025-10-08T12:46:36Z")
If the steel is “up to snuff”, fine. My main concern is why buy from “somewhere else” if US companies can do the job. I was just thinking about my experience over the years with imported products. Yes, their QC has improved very much. I can think of some “electronics equipment” companies that started out manufacturing products that was sold in discount department stores that are now “quality”. But the thought that we would have to rely on imported products that could be “cut off” in an “international incident”, for lack of a better word is just a bit scary. Just pondering the possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![ombugge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/ombugge/32/11217_2.png) [@ombugge](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ombugge)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 3:07pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/22 "2025-10-08T15:07:25Z")
“Free trade”, or al least international trade based on agreed (WTO) rules and trade agreements between individual nations or blocks, have served the world well for decades. USA have been the instigator, the .leader and one of the big winners from this system. There were a period after WWII that large part of the world was in ruins, with their means of production destroyed, thus most country relied on USA to be the “factory of the world” PS\> Dont start any “international incidents”, then you’ll be fine. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![DirtSailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f1d935/32.png) [@DirtSailor](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/DirtSailor)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/23 "2025-10-09T00:46:33Z")
> [@ombugge](#): > > PS\> Dont start any “international incidents”, then you’ll be fine. 🤣 Does that include “Existing while China invades Taiwan or sparks a war with the Philippines or any other silly eventuality that results from their recent belligerence”? Also, couldn’t find any photos I took of the Polar Star from next to the dry dock, but I did get a couple glamour shots with it posing behind my truck, plus this one here: ![20140820_155119](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/gcaptain_maritime_forum/original/3X/6/4/64440766370031e42a3644e8aea23f5597be02fb.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Tupsis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Tupsis](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/Tupsis)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2025, 11:29am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/24 "2025-10-09T11:29:13Z")
> [@](#): > > A White House official said Trump would sign a memorandum of understanding with Finland to build four “Arctic security cutters” at shipyards in Finland, calling the plan a national security necessity to permit foreign construction. > > “We will then leverage Finnish expertise to construct up to seven new ASCs in shipyards located in the United States,” the official said. [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-finlands-stubb-expected-reach-icebreaker-deal-2025-10-09/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-finlands-stubb-expected-reach-icebreaker-deal-2025-10-09/) ---
**Author:** ![Tupsis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Tupsis](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/Tupsis)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/25 "2025-10-09T20:04:03Z")
…and here come the waivers for foreign build. > **[Construction of Arctic Security Cutters](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/10/construction-of-arctic-security-cutters/)** > > MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY ---
**Author:** ![ChaplainDarrell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/chaplaindarrell/32/41200_2.png) [@ChaplainDarrell](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ChaplainDarrell)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 1:30pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/26 "2025-10-10T13:30:35Z")
As us backwoods people likes to say “Whatever it takes to get the coon”. (Racoon) We need the ships so I have no problem with Finnish breakers. Bound to be good for foreign relations. And the labels on instruments and controls aren’t in “Finnish”. 😁 On our ship, the labels were English but if you turned them over, they were Cyrillic from the days the Russians had her during WWII. Some guys would turn the labels to the Russian side what a new shipmate reported onboard. So much more original than the “mail buoy watch”. ---
**Author:** ![Binbag\_the\_Saylore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Binbag\_the\_Saylore](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/Binbag_the_Saylore)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/27 "2025-10-10T17:10:25Z")
> [@ChaplainDarrell](#): > > labels on instruments and controls aren’t in “Finnish” One of my more “interesting” jobs was a yacht conversion in a Cherbourg shipyard, of what was built in 1990 as E.German Navy, ice-class, Baltic tug, which had been last in service in Scandi logging industry in the Baltic. We added new labels to most of the German and Russian markings all over. Then the french asked if we wanted the label changed on the big red Emergency Fuel Shutoff button on the bridge. I said no, preferring to keep the weird contradictory marking “ **NOT STOP GO**!” ---
**Author:** ![ombugge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/ombugge/32/11217_2.png) [@ombugge](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ombugge)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/28 "2025-10-10T19:12:53Z")
Don’t worry, the Fins are very good at speaking, reading and writing English: > **[Finland ranks sixth in English skills, early instruction crucial](https://yle.fi/a/3-10071036)** > > A survey of 80 countries finds that the Finns trail the Dutch, the Singaporeans and most Nordic neighbours in English abilities. PS\> That is in English English. Not sure how well the do in American English. 😜 ---
**Author:** ![ChaplainDarrell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/chaplaindarrell/32/41200_2.png) [@ChaplainDarrell](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ChaplainDarrell)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2025, 11:45am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/29 "2025-10-11T11:45:09Z")
I speak English like a second language. I speak the North Carolina version of the southern accent as my primary language. 😁 One thing I did discover years ago, no one in any country speaks “high school foreign language”. We were taught “perfect” French, German, Spanish” and THEY do not speak like what is taught in school. ---
**Author:** ![ombugge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/ombugge/32/11217_2.png) [@ombugge](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ombugge)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 10:29am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/30 "2025-10-17T10:29:10Z")
Long and detailed article for the specially interested: > **[Forget the hype. Here are the facts about last week's US-Finland icebreaker...](https://www.arctictoday.com/forget-the-hype-here-are-the-facts-about-last-weeks-us-finland-icebreaker-deal/)** > > This is a reproduction of an article that first appeared on Sixty Degrees North. If you would like to read more posts by Peter Rybski, you can sign up for his blog here. There has been a lot of hype (and incorrect information) flowing since... ---
**Author:** ![ChaplainDarrell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/chaplaindarrell/32/41200_2.png) [@ChaplainDarrell](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/ChaplainDarrell)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2025, 2:37pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503/31 "2025-10-21T14:37:48Z")
I was reading the article and almost laughed when I read “the Coast Guard FLEET of icebreakers. Until the Storis joined, we had a FLEET of TWO or was it three icebreakers. Ready to conquer the world. 😁 [Previous page](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/icebreakers/73503.md?page=1)