I had the great pleasure of being on board the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Line 65611 with Chief Petty Officer John C. Kast and his crew. Today’s mission was to break up the ice on the Hudson River between Kingston, New York and West Point, New York allowing commercial vessels to travel with ease up and down the hudson river with most of them carrying more than 5 million barrels of home heating oil and other petroleum products. I had a drive of an hour and 45 minutes from Hackensack, NJ traveling north to Kingston NY to meet up with the vessel. I arrived at 8am with a small snow storm rolling in. I boarded the vessel with another reporter from Capital 9 news in Albany. Already without leaving the dock you can see the amazing amount of ice filling the rondout creek we were docked in. The USGC Cutter named “Line” is 65 feet long with a crew of 8 on board. I will be posting a video shortly of my day with this crew soon. For now here are a few snapshots I took from the day and a map of our route down river. I would personally like to thank the Coast Guard and the Cheif and Crew for making this such a great experience for me. Chief John Kast who was also a cook before he joined the Coast Guard went out of his way to cook me a great lunch on board. Thank you again for letting me join you guys on this mission.

Our route