Ships!

Started by mirth, April 28, 2013, 09:07:45 AM

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Windigo

... getting only two points on a last card 31 is bullshit.
My doctor wrote me a prescription for daily sex.

My wife insists that it says dyslexia but what does she know.

besilarius

Neat-O.
Never heard of this.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

Staggerwing

That is a cool story!
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

bob48

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'

'Clip those corners'

Recombobulate the discombobulators!

besilarius

"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

besilarius

Canadian corvette ramming a Uboat.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

Staggerwing

Wow!  :o

That pic is a real find!
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

besilarius

Narwal rides out Hurricane Hugo:

In 1989, residents of the East Coast braced for a potential hurricane strike as Hurricane Hugo passed over the Lesser Antilles as a strong Category 4/5 storm on September 17th and began turning northwest. The eye of the hurricane, originally forecast to head directly for the eastern Florida coast, took an unexpectedly northern turn the next day, and the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for the South Carolina coast.

Meanwhile, the Narwhal, among many other valuable Navy assets docked at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, prepared for a possible direct hit to the Lowcountry by the impending storm. Of the 28 floating assets in harm's way at Charleston, half were withdrawn from the base and sent to sea, out of the storm's path. The Narwhal and a number of other vessels did not have this option, however; they were not deemed seaworthy for a variety of reasons, mostly related to routine maintenance work/ dry docking. In the Narwhal's case, she was in dry dock for an impending massive refueling and overhaul operation, and although her nuclear reactor was offline, concerns arose about how to best secure the berths for her and the other boats in the face of expected 140+ knot winds.

Extra thick mooring cables were secured to provide what was hoped to be enough redundancy to keep the Narwhal safely tied up at pier. However, as the strong Category 4 winds of Hugo bore down on Charleston late in the evening of September 21st, the men assigned to keeping the Narwhal safely tucked away were shocked to see the combination of a 20-foot storm surge and catastrophic winds buckle and break all of its mooring cables but one—a tenacious aft night rider. The Narwhal, with her crew aboard, was tossed around by the giant storm and began to dangle away from the pier into the middle of the Cooper River. The men aboard the Narwhal felt somewhat helpless as the waves and winds buffeted the huge submarine around, stymieing any efforts to gain independent control of her movements. The topside duty was secured once the waves began crashing onto the steel beach too high, endangering those crewmembers valiantly trying to maintain watch under extreme weather conditions. All topside personnel were brought down below, the hatches were secured, and the watch was moved to the periscope. Shortly thereafter, Narwhal's final umbilical cord to the pier was cut when the final mooring cable broke loose. The Narwhal was underway, but she was perilously out of control.

As luck would have it, Mother Nature granted the Narwhal a short reprieve from the storm as the crisis was unfolding. As the submarine was foundering in the Cooper, the winds suddenly abated with the arrival of the hurricane's eye over the shipyard shortly after midnight on September 22nd. Two tugboats were deployed during this brief lull in the storm to engage the Narwhal and help her return to the pier. Unfortunately, time was the enemy, and the tugboats had to turn away on their approach as the calm conditions vanished once again. The back wall of the hurricane had abruptly arrived, along with the return of battering winds in excess of 130 knots with higher gusts to 150 knots.

Realizing that his mighty submarine was powerless against the littoral juggernaut that was Hugo, the CO of the Narwhal, Captain Daniel L. Whitford, made an unconventional and audacious decision. As the winds continued to ramp up, threatening the safety of his crew, Whitford announced, "We can either ride out the storm and wind up on shore, or we can sink it right here." During the height of the tempest—the most powerful hurricane ever to strike the East Coast north of Florida at that time—the CO gave the order to submerge. The Narwhal was going to ride out the remainder of the storm at the bottom of the Cooper River.

And so, operating solely on battery power (the reactor had already been shut down), the klaxon sounded out two shrill bursts: "Dive! Dive!" The ballast tanks were flooded and the Narwhal silently sank to the river bed, where she spent the remainder of the night as the raging storm passed over. The crew could not use the snorkel for air exchange because the cooling water ports along the bottom of the hull would have clogged with mud; they would have to make due with just the ambient air on board when they dove. Reducing the number of active watch personnel helped to minimize the overnight oxygen consumption, so that those not on duty could rest and conserve air. The Corpsman ("Doc") checked the air quality constantly during the night to make sure that dangerous atmospheric conditions didn't develop. The oxygen and carbon dioxide levels did deviate from acceptable values on the Narwhal that night, but not to a threshold that required emergency intervention. As long as fresh air was coming in a few hours, the crew would be fine.

Everything electrical was shut off except for minimal lighting, in order to decrease the load on the ship's batteries. Communication between compartments was conducted on the sound powered ship's phones—the 2JV communications system. The depth at the river bottom was no more than 25 feet, such that the top of the Narwhal's sail and fairwater planes protruded above the waterline. Those personnel on periscope watch were able to observe the effects of the storm. The river was littered with capsized boats, mangled buoys and other flotsam, and the land was dark except for the occasional blue glow of another transformer exploding. It was a surreal scene.

When dawn broke, imagine the disbelief of those who had ridden out the storm from the safety of the base when they looked toward the river to see the top of the conning tower of the Narwhal breaking above the water surface! Or, even stranger still, the perspective of the USS Casimir Pulaski (SSBN-633G), as it cruised up the mouth of the Cooper from Charleston Harbor, to come upon the top of sail of a sister submarine right there in the middle of the river, seeming to stand as both sentry and symbol of survival. The crew of the Narwhal had indeed used the unlikely refuge of the river bottom to successfully ride out the storm.

The ultimate soundness of the CO's decision to sink to the bottom of the Cooper River was tested when it was time for the Narwhal to surface that morning. The submarine was embedded in tenacious silt that made engine start with both forward and reverse way EOT commands completely ineffective in dislodging the submarine from its muddy cradle. However, the A-gangers and nukes fellows put their heads together and came up with an ingenious idea to run a hose from the low-pressure blower to fill the ballast tanks both fore and aft. By methodically blowing the ballast tanks in an alternating pattern, the hull slipped free of the river bed, and the Narwhal surfaced and returned to the pier.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

DoctorQuest

That is an amazing story. Thanks for sharing.
"Everything you read on the internet is true." - Benjamin Franklin

"Zero-G and I feel fine....." - John Glenn

"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage, inventor of the alternative fact.

Airborne Rifles


besilarius

Probably too late.
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

besilarius

"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

Windigo

German submarine U-889 surrendering to the Fairmile motor launch Q117 of the Royal Canadian Navy off Shelburne, Nova Scotia, 13 May 1945. The Royal Canadian Navy removed U-889's crew following the U-Boat's surrender at Shelburne, Nova Scotia. On this, its first war patrol, the submarine had left Germany in March, stopping in Norway before heading into the Atlantic in early April. It surrendered before it could carry out orders to attack shipping off the port of New York.


My doctor wrote me a prescription for daily sex.

My wife insists that it says dyslexia but what does she know.

Staggerwing

Photobombed by a PBY O0
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

DoctorQuest

"Everything you read on the internet is true." - Benjamin Franklin

"Zero-G and I feel fine....." - John Glenn

"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage, inventor of the alternative fact.