“One of the reasons there are so many terms for
conditions of ice is that the mariners observing it were often trapped in it,
and had nothing to do except look at it.”
― Alec Wilkinson, The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration
One of the most striking places to see the
effects of below-zero temperatures is on the Hudson River. Though jet skis and leisure
boats are not in season, the river remains a year-round shipping route for
petroleum products as well as a source of drinking water for over 100,000 Hudson
Valley residents in communities such as Poughkeepsie, Highland and Rhinebeck.
When the Hudson freezes over the route is
cleared by icebreaking boats. This past January the 140-foot U.S. Coast Guard
Penobscot Bay icebreaking tug made it’s way from New Jersey to Albany. Can ram through
ice up to 3 feet thick with the aid of a lubrication system that forces air and
water between the boat’s hull and ice.
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