The International Ice Patrol is an organization with the purpose of monitoring the presence of icebergs in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and reporting their movements for safety purposes. It is operated by United States Coast Guard but is funded by the 13 nations interested in trans-Atlantic navigation. As of 2011 the governments contributing to the International Ice Patrol include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Poland, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
The organization was established in 1914 in response to the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The primary mission of the Ice Patrol is to alert any seacraft traveling the great circle shipping lanes between Europe and the major ports of the United States and Canada of the presence of any icebergs there.
Read more about International Ice Patrol: Founding, Administration, Aviation History of The International Ice Patrol, Command
Famous quotes containing the word ice:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)