SUMMARY REPORT OF THE COMMANDER, INTERNATIONAL 



ICE PATROL 



Commander Thomas M. Molloy 



The Tampa left Boston, Mass., on April 1, to inaugurate the 1929 

 ice patrol. The Tampa and the Modoc each spent four full IS-daj 

 periods in the ice regions during the season. The patrol was dis- 

 continued at word received from Coast Guard Headquarters on August. 

 3, when the Tampa was on the second day of the ninth patrol period. 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia, was used as a base for fuel and suppHes, as in 

 previous years. During the season the two patrol vessels cruised a 

 total of 23,249 nautical miles, which figure includes the distance run 

 while going to and from the base. 



The weather, as is usually the case, was raw and boisterous the first 

 patrol cruise, but it steadily improved as the season progressed, sa 

 that during the last half of May and all of June there were but nine 

 hours of gales. During the last month of the patrol season unusually 

 moderate conditions prevailed, there being no gales whatever. The 

 normal large amount of Grand Banks fog was experienced. The full 

 season was about equallj^ divided in point of time by foggy, clear, 

 and overcast weather conditions. 



Sixty-nine oceanographic stations were occupied during the season 

 from time to time as opportunity offered. The salinities of the water 

 samples were all determined on board ship and the dynamic computa- 

 tions were all worked out before the end of the active season. If the 

 work of ice scouting and trailing had permitted the station work 

 would have been more extensive and systematic. As it was, un- 

 precedentedly heavy ice conditions required the patrol to concentrate 

 on the practical work of watching the southernmost ice and on the 

 service of information rather than on a comprehensive oceanographical 

 program. Frequent soundings were taken with the fathometers, 

 the results being tabulated for future correction and hydrographic 

 use whenever the ship's position was well fixed by observations. 



Ice was rather late in appearing in the Atlantic off the Grand Banks 

 in 1929, and April 1, when the first vessel departed on patrol, marked 

 a later starting of the active season than in any year since 1920, when 

 the first vessel left New York on April 3. Because of the heaviness 

 and persistence of the ice once it began to come down, however, the 

 season proved an extremely long one, lasting 128 days. Word to 

 discontinue the 1929 patrol was not received until August 3, a full 



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