U.S. to Partner with Canada and Finland to Fix Icebreaker Program and

[ombugge]

Refr, the above:

Finland spent years on icebreaker deal before memorandum with US, Canada -...

For years, Helsinki has worked to develop the market for icebreakers in the U.S., which has seen its fleet dwindle. Finnish government officials and industry leaders alike have been involved in the effort to lease one of their most valuable assets to a buyer they knew needed it.

As early as 2013, Arctia, the state-run enterprise that operates Finland’s icebreaking fleet, began meeting with U.S. officials on Capitol Hill to discuss the possibility of leasing two of its premier icebreaking vessels during the off-season to help the U.S. meet its polar objectives.
“The idea was that Finland had seven mid-heavy icebreakers which are used on the Baltic Sea during the winter,” said Tero Vauraste, the CEO of Arctia from 2009 until 2019, in an interview with Arctic Today. “They weren’t needed during the summer period when Arctic operations occurred in the U.S. and Canadian Arctic waters.”
He said he even brought the offer directly to President Barack Obama, thanks to a chance encounter in a hotel gym on the sidelines of an Alaskan conference in 2015.
The U.S. president “was receptive,” Vauraste said. “It was a very nice discussion, and he told me that it was a great day to discuss this because, on that particular day, he was going to urge Congress to proceed with decisions on icebreaking.”

Nostalgia for some gcaptain members?:

The Polar Star icebreaker. (USCGC)