GARDINER — Unseasonably warm weather turned an annual ice-breaking operation on the Kennebec River into a training mission.

With no ice in sight, three 65-foot ice-cutters arrived early Tuesday morning at the Gardiner town landing.

Capt. Christopher Roberge, commander of Coast Guard Sector Northern New England, said that despite the decrease in ice coverage and thickness this year, the mission still offered the opportunity to train the boat crews.

The ice-cutters normally break and flush ice from Merrymeeting Bay to Gardiner to reduce the risk of ice jams and flooding as snow and river ice begin to melt and flow out to sea each year.

Coast Guard Lt. Nick Barrow said it was a great opportunity for the three cutters to practice navigation in a restricted waterway without the risk of ice flows.

“The crews benefited from the experience without the high stress of an ice condition,” Barrow said Tuesday, as an occasional chunk of ice drifted by the three moored cutters.

“We have a rate of turnover each year, and for a lot of the crew members this is their first time riding up the river to Gardiner,” he said.

Barrow said the warm weather the past couple of weeks – with temperatures soaring into the high 50s and low 60s at times – melted the ice quicker than anyone expected.

He said it was a different story last year at this time, when a significant amount of rainfall created ideal conditions for flooding.

“This year, Mother Nature did it for us,” he said. “We didn’t have the ice-covered river to break up or a major rain event to saturate the ground and cause the river to spill over the side. This is nowhere near that type of scenario.”

In 2010, cutters were called in when an ice jam formed on Jan. 26 off Front Street in Gardiner and backed upriver to Farmingdale.

The Coast Guard had discussed aborting the mission this year to save on fuel costs, Barrows said.

“There’s a cost of doing business associated with running Coast Guard ships, and again, this was a planned and coordinated mission,” he said.

“There is no added cost incurred by doing this. From a taxpayers’ perspective, I suspect it certainly benefits folks when our crews are trained and proficient with what they do, and there’s a cost associated with that.”

Barrows said he didn’t know how much the operation cost. Training activities included boat navigation, practice using the ice-cutters and checking on buoys in the river.

Barrows said about 30 crew members participated on the Coast Guard Cutter Shackle out of Portland, the Tackle out of Rockland and the Bridle out of Southwest Harbor.

He said the crews will stay overnight in Gardiner and return to their ports today.

“They’ll take time off tonight and end up at some of the restaurants in town,” Barrows said Tuesday. “We don’t see this as a waste, but still a successfully planned mission.”

The ice-breaking operation is made possible each year through close collaboration with the Maine River Flow Advisory Commission along with federal, state, county and local agencies.

Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Mechele Cooper can be contacted at 621-5663 or at: mcooper@centralmaine.com