U.S. Navy Seabees are building a $65 million floating pier, photographed March 28, 2026, at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. (Komlan Adjassem/U.S. Navy)
A detachment of U.S. Navy Seabees is heading home after 184 days installing a floating pier at America’s largest research station in Antarctica.
The structure, designed to replace McMurdo Station’s ice pier, has been under construction since October 2024.
Ships deliver cargo and fuel to the station, where more than 1,000 people live and work from October to March. During the past research season, the USCGC Polar Star broke ice to allow other vessels to enter McMurdo Sound.
Navy Detachment Antarctica — 32 members of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 at Port Hueneme, Calif. —- arrived on the ice in early October, their commander, Lt. Cmdr. Cyndele McVeigh, said Wednesday. The nickname “Seabees” for the Navy’s engineers derives from the first two letters of the official unit description, construction battalion.
The Seabees head home on Saturday after working outdoors in one of the world’s harshest environments, McVeigh told Stars and Stripes by phone from McMurdo.
Antarctica gets round-the-clock daylight during the southern hemisphere’s summer, but by March the station gets significantly darker and colder.
In the Antarctic winter, temperatures at the station can drop below minus 50 degrees F.
The Seabees, equipped with cold-weather clothing, used a rock quarry saw to prepare the frozen shoreline during the project, McVeigh said.
U.S. Navy Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 pose for a group photo during work on a new floating pier at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Nov. 6, 2025. (Komlan Adjassem/U.S. Navy)
The main part of the 328-foot-long pier is a barge, built by Portland, Ore., shipbuilder Gunderson Marine and Iron. The barge, towed to the ice via Lyttleton, New Zealand, arrived Feb. 24 in McMurdo Sound, she said.
“That was the major milestone,” she said.
The final phase of the project will involve installing ramps between the barge and shore to allow cargo to roll on and off. The Seabees will return to the ice in October to put the finishing touches on the project, which is due to be complete by Thanksgiving, according to McVeigh.
McMurdo has relied on an ice pier to offload cargo since the 1970s. Maintaining it involves building a sand berm and applying water that freezes to a 17- to 22-foot base.
The floating pier is more stable and designed to last 20 to 30 years, she said.
Working Seabees saw orcas and penguins as part of their day, according to McVeigh.
Seabees built McMurdo Station and a base at the South Pole in the 1950s but the last time they were there before the pier project was 1994, according to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
The sailors worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, Antarctica New Zealand, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Antarctic Program on the project.
