Petty Officer 3rd Class Grant DeVuyst/U.S. Coast Guard

Arctic shorelines aren't beaches full of fluffy

sand. They're brutal terrain made of jagged ice, silty slush, and everything in-between. To travel here, you need a different type of vehicle, and the U.S. Coast Guard—which is going to be spending more of its time in these harsh locales —wants to find out exactly what that looks like.

Richard Hansen, surface branch chief for the Coast Guard's Research and Development Center based in New London, Conn., says the Arctic will be the next growing point of emphasis for the Coast Guard as oil exploration and the possibility of increased fishery action heat up there. But dealing with arctic missions doesn't fit with any craft already in the Coast Guard stable.

Earlier this month the Coast Guard sponsored what amounted to a fancy ice-roving demonstration, allowing two private companies to show off their amphibious crafts in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S. Arktos Developments of British Columbia, Canada, and Tyler Rentals/Amphib Alaska of Ketchikan, Alaska, brought the monster vehicles for a frigid torture test.

The Arktos craft is a two-podded articulating machine. It runs on diesel-powered, hydraulic-operated tracks on uneven ground, and on jet propulsion when in water. Hansen says the tanklike contraption is a little like what the U.S. Marines use as amphibious assault vehicles. It's already in use, too—private companies use the 32-ton, 50-foot-long vehicle around oil rigs. Bruce Seligman, creator of the Arktos craft, says six of his $3 million machines are already in use.

Arktos's machine features two separate units for mobility on irregular terrain, run by a driver operating a joystick controller. The e-glass/Kevlar hybrid outlay withstands "crushing forces from vast ice flow formations," the company's website claims, all while hauling payloads of up to 10 tons, even in quicksand.

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The second rig was considerably smaller. Alaska Amphib/Tyler Rentals built its 8-ton, 21-foot rig specifically for the Coast Guard's demonstration. The craft, finished just days before the demonstration and flown in on a C-130 cargo plane, features the same powering structure and tracks, but its boatlike hull allows the 12-inch-wide tracks to retract for floatation. The engines on both machines are designed to filter the silt-filled water, which wreaks havoc on the outboard motors of ordinary boats—another reason the Coast Guard needs a more rugged machine for the high Arctic.

Since quality roads and ports are rare or nonexistent in the high Arctic, the Coast Guard wants vehicles it can deploy from a C-130 or a ship. (Anything that fits in a C-130 will easily fit on a Coast Guard ship or cutter, Hansen says.) While the Arktos craft is too big for that C-130 requirement—the company barged over an already-in-use model from an oil rig in Prudhoe Bay—the Coast Guard still wanted to see it in action because potentially it could be scaled down.

During the demo, Seligman says the Arktos craft went from icy beach rover to boat: It drove right across a beach where simply stepping in the sand sinks you inches. From there, the craft submerged into the shallow ocean water, headed right out into the sea, and then easily crawled onto an ice flow 10 miles out. The machine traveled at 7 miles per hour with its two 260-hp engines. "It was absolutely phenomenal," Seligman says. "We would have liked to have even more ice." (Randy Johnson, creator of the Amphib Alaska craft, was traveling in Alaska and unavailable for comment.)

Shannon Jenkins of the Coast Guard's office of research, development, test and evaluation for environment and waterways says it's not certain whether the government would buy either of these vehicles yet, but the five-day test will give the Coast Guard a great head start in figuring out the future of Arctic transportation. As private companies expand into the Arctic, the Coast Guard anticipates needing to maneuver small boats (anything under 65 feet long is considered a boat) in the area void of traditional boat-housing facilities to respond to potential oil spills, law enforcement issues, or fisheries needs.

The Coast Guard might bring north some more of its own vehicles; for example, the service owns airboats used to travel on ice in the Great Lakes. But those lightweight ships are hard to handle in the open sea, and their noise could prove harmful to Artic wildlife. Hansen also hopes to take a look at an air-cushion craft of some sort. "Maybe we could come up with launching devices, something to pick up a standard boat and drag it across the beach and plunk it in the water," Hansen says.

In short, the Coast Guard is trying to consider all the possibilities for navigating the Arctic. Whatever they come up with, expect something that makes dealing with arctic conditions—even floating ice—a lot less cumbersome. Almost as easy as a walk on the beach.

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