USCG icebreaker returns home after 124-day Arctic deployment

Healy is a 420-foot medium icebreaker and a uniquely capable oceanographic research platform

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (WAGB 20) is scheduled to return home to Seattle, Friday, following a historic 17,000-mile, 124-day deployment in the high Arctic latitudes that included a transit to the North Pole.

The crew’s efforts demonstrated interoperability in the Polar Region, supported U.S. security objectives, and projected an ice-capable presence in Arctic waters and the Gulf of Alaska.

Commissioned in 2000, Healy is a 420-foot medium icebreaker and a uniquely capable oceanographic research platform. Healy’s crew traversed the ice-packed Arctic Ocean to the top of the world, reaching the geographic North Pole on Sept. 30, 2022. This was only the second time a U.S. vessel had reached 90 degrees north unaccompanied.