SS Manhattan is an oil tanker built at the Fore River River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts which became the first commercial vessel to cross the Northwest Passage in 1969. Built as a regular tanker in 1962 , he was reassembled for this voyage with an ice-breaking bow in 1968-1969. Registered in the United States at the time, he was the largest US merchant ship and largest ice-breaking ship in history.
In 1965, he was taken to Portland, Oregon via the Columbia River, to be cleaned and used to transport 50,000 tons of grain. The size and design of the ship requires careful preparation for its transit in the river.
Manhattan remained in operation until 1987. After the accident in East Asia he was banished in China.
Video SS Manhattan (1962)
1969 transit North Passage
Manhattan ' s began in August 1969 on the east coast of North America and transit sections from east to west through the Baffin Sea and Viscount Melville Sound. The master of Manhattan is Captain Roger A. Steward. Severe sea ice blocks the way through the Strait of M'Clure, so a more southerly route through the Prince Wales Strait and south of Banks Island is used. One, the barrel of crude oil is loaded in Prudhoe Bay and then ship back. He was escorted by the Coast Coast Guard CCGSÃ ice breaker, John A. Macdonald . At various times during the expedition, Manhattan is supported by CCGSÃ ©, Louis Louis St Laurent, USCGC, Staten Island and USCGC, i> Northwind .
This route through the Northwest Passage is quite controversial in international relations because this water sovereignty is claimed by Canada and this claim has been disputed by the United States. The Government of Canada has established all waters in the Canadian Arctic Islands as "Canadian Internal Waters."
The voyage sparked a passionate discussion in Canada about the country's sovereignty in the Arctic, a topic that dominated the Arctic policy formulated under the reign of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau throughout the 1970s. At one point during the voyage, the Inuit hunter stopped the ship and demanded that the captain of the ship ask permission to cross the Canadian territory, which he did, and they granted it. The Canadian sovereignty debate generated by Manhattan is reviving due to the multi-year decline in sea ice, due to global warming, making ship transit more likely in the future. The question is whether the passage can be considered the international strait or not.
The official reasons for the voyage revolved around the oil that had been discovered in Prudhoe Bay in 1968. Oil companies argued that sea transportation from oil by ice supertancers would be cheaper than the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System to Valdez. The second attempt to cross the road in winter proved impossible, and there were many environmental problems with the project, which canceled and built Trans-Alaska pipeline.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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