Ever wonder just how much one of them grey hulled Navy ships cost the tax payers? For a destroyer maybe a few billion green backs... maybe?!? You'd a figured with such a large investment of the king's ransom so to speak a lot of extra care would be taken to haul them things into the pier... well you'd be surprised!!!
You see in the Navy we call this exercise the art of mooring! For those of you crackerjacks who never stood sea & anchor detail, it entailed using giant ropes, or what we called 'lines' in the Navy to pull the big hunk of metal to the dock when we pulled in port!! Sorta like tying up a fish'n boat but on a much greater scale!!!
At some point out in the great blue yonder the Skipper figures it's time to call away the Sea & Anchor Detail over the 1MC! At that point the Deck apes all headed topside to the forecastle and all the twidgets and gun monkeys to the fantail!! Once everyone mustered with the Chief, all the 'T' wrenches, smoke floats, heaving lines, and monkey fists were coiled and faked on deck for the up coming evolution that usually didn't happen for another gaudamn three to four hours in the ice cold rain or blistering heat!!!
Once alongside the pier and the word was passed 'over all lines' it became a personal challenge to the manhood of all worthy seaman with a heavie in hand to toss that damn monkey fist straight at the poor son-of-a-bitch idly waiting on the dock! We were lucky not to knock anybody off his keister!! This was the point when all the funny shit started to happen!!!
When I was a young blue shirt on the Bagley my compadres gave me the pleasure of tossing the heavie over to the pier! After two or three tries I finally got the son-of-a-bitch to the other side!! Once the fella on the pier got our line strapped around the bollard my compadres kept yelling to him to dip the eye of the other end of the line once we got it across!! Of course being wet behind the ears I had no gaudamn clue what they were talking about nor did the young fella on the pier!! When he asked... I not wanting to look stupid, told him to drop the line in the water... hence dipping the eye!!!
All those sons-a-bitches just busted out laughing at me! Then the Chief proceeded to chew my ass with veins popping out each side of his neck and explain to me that dipping the eye means reach'n through the noose, grab the line and pull it through the eye so it will fit over the bollard and pull tight!! Of course I didn't live that one down for months!! Who would've thought I'd be the Chief on the fantail one day!!!
Once the mooring lines were over, the tugs and the 'OOD' would maneuver the ship into its ideal position next to the pier! If you recall my story 'Another Bird of a Feather' you'd remember how the shit hit the fan when FC2 Henry caused the bridge to lose control of the ship!! I tell you the gaudamn mooring lines were smoking!! We watched videos in Navy Bootcamp of this stuff... sailors gett'n their legs chopped off at the knees by those mooring lines!! That's some scary shit...!!!
But it's not over until it's over! The point of being a cracker jack sailor is going out to sea!! And most of us young rowdy types were hungover at best if not still three shits to the wind and barely hanging on!! Once while pulling out of Majuro of theMarshall Islands
The next thing I know one of the line handlers was yell'n,
"The ol' man is gonna park her on the pier!"
All the gaudamn natives were running like hell while everyone on the fantail was duck'n down low and hanging on for dear life bracing themselves for one hell-uva crash! And what a hell-uva crash it was!! There was a terrible hellish reverberation of the rumbling hull and splintering wood off the quay wall as the fantail raised about ten feet in the air and it seemed as though we had road the ass end of the ship up on the beach!!!
We were gaudamn lucky the screws didn't catch the quay wall or our happy asses would've been sitt'n pier side in theMarshall Islands
Hours later we were down in the skin of the ship taking pictures of the dented hull poking through the lagging with the 'DCA' saying something of the effect...
"Yep, it's a Destroyer alright!"
To this day I don't know how the hell we made it through that ordeal! From my recollection the Deck Apes said something about the tug capsizing when it lost control... we all wondered if the Navy was gonna have to pay reparations for one tug boat and the whole gaudamn supply of alcohol from the island!! But it didn't matter because the next few days were full of the exhilaration and high of sweet fresh salt air and fantasies of coming home... the feeling you get that last couple of weeks just before pulling in from a long deployment...euphoric!! Once you feel it you never forget it! Next...
"Look Out Pearl, cause here we come!!!"
You see in the Navy we call this exercise the art of mooring! For those of you crackerjacks who never stood sea & anchor detail, it entailed using giant ropes, or what we called 'lines' in the Navy to pull the big hunk of metal to the dock when we pulled in port!! Sorta like tying up a fish'n boat but on a much greater scale!!!
At some point out in the great blue yonder the Skipper figures it's time to call away the Sea & Anchor Detail over the 1MC! At that point the Deck apes all headed topside to the forecastle and all the twidgets and gun monkeys to the fantail!! Once everyone mustered with the Chief, all the 'T' wrenches, smoke floats, heaving lines, and monkey fists were coiled and faked on deck for the up coming evolution that usually didn't happen for another gaudamn three to four hours in the ice cold rain or blistering heat!!!
Once alongside the pier and the word was passed 'over all lines' it became a personal challenge to the manhood of all worthy seaman with a heavie in hand to toss that damn monkey fist straight at the poor son-of-a-bitch idly waiting on the dock! We were lucky not to knock anybody off his keister!! This was the point when all the funny shit started to happen!!!
When I was a young blue shirt on the Bagley my compadres gave me the pleasure of tossing the heavie over to the pier! After two or three tries I finally got the son-of-a-bitch to the other side!! Once the fella on the pier got our line strapped around the bollard my compadres kept yelling to him to dip the eye of the other end of the line once we got it across!! Of course being wet behind the ears I had no gaudamn clue what they were talking about nor did the young fella on the pier!! When he asked... I not wanting to look stupid, told him to drop the line in the water... hence dipping the eye!!!
All those sons-a-bitches just busted out laughing at me! Then the Chief proceeded to chew my ass with veins popping out each side of his neck and explain to me that dipping the eye means reach'n through the noose, grab the line and pull it through the eye so it will fit over the bollard and pull tight!! Of course I didn't live that one down for months!! Who would've thought I'd be the Chief on the fantail one day!!!
Once the mooring lines were over, the tugs and the 'OOD' would maneuver the ship into its ideal position next to the pier! If you recall my story 'Another Bird of a Feather' you'd remember how the shit hit the fan when FC2 Henry caused the bridge to lose control of the ship!! I tell you the gaudamn mooring lines were smoking!! We watched videos in Navy Bootcamp of this stuff... sailors gett'n their legs chopped off at the knees by those mooring lines!! That's some scary shit...!!!
But it's not over until it's over! The point of being a cracker jack sailor is going out to sea!! And most of us young rowdy types were hungover at best if not still three shits to the wind and barely hanging on!! Once while pulling out of Majuro of the
The next thing I know one of the line handlers was yell'n,
"The ol' man is gonna park her on the pier!"
All the gaudamn natives were running like hell while everyone on the fantail was duck'n down low and hanging on for dear life bracing themselves for one hell-uva crash! And what a hell-uva crash it was!! There was a terrible hellish reverberation of the rumbling hull and splintering wood off the quay wall as the fantail raised about ten feet in the air and it seemed as though we had road the ass end of the ship up on the beach!!!
We were gaudamn lucky the screws didn't catch the quay wall or our happy asses would've been sitt'n pier side in the
Hours later we were down in the skin of the ship taking pictures of the dented hull poking through the lagging with the 'DCA' saying something of the effect...
"Yep, it's a Destroyer alright!"
To this day I don't know how the hell we made it through that ordeal! From my recollection the Deck Apes said something about the tug capsizing when it lost control... we all wondered if the Navy was gonna have to pay reparations for one tug boat and the whole gaudamn supply of alcohol from the island!! But it didn't matter because the next few days were full of the exhilaration and high of sweet fresh salt air and fantasies of coming home... the feeling you get that last couple of weeks just before pulling in from a long deployment...euphoric!! Once you feel it you never forget it! Next...
"Look Out Pearl, cause here we come!!!"
Not impressed......
ReplyDeletehas any one ever remember reading any books by a ret adrmaial they where comadys i belive one of them was called called ( clear the decks ) AND IF I remember there was about 5 or 6 more books he did i do not know the other ones he did if any ones he did if anyone does please let me know
Deletezlposeidon0623@gmail.com
wasn't Capt. FatSo series was it?
DeleteThey were written by Rear Admiral Daniel V Gallery.
DeleteI thought it was great!
ReplyDeleteSeems to me who ever that fella is who doesn't like the story is just some crazy cry baby liberal pussy.
ReplyDeleteLove it... I remember smashing a pier in Panama when our WEPS was conning, decided he didn't need tugs with these fancy new reversable pitch screws... needless to say all us gun types and twigits when running for the starboard side as we drug the entire port side length of the tin can down the pier... as we left there was pieces of the pier floating in the harbor and we had a brand new racing stripe about 8ft off the water. Skipper was pissed and WEPS never got to drive that ship again.
ReplyDeleteGood Story
ReplyDeleteLoved it. Reminded me of some of the funny shit my brother used to tell when he would come home after being out for a while.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are thinking of ADM. Dan Gallery. He wrote some great navy books.
ReplyDeleteExcellent stories!
DeleteI was the phone talker on the bridge for that evolution (in Majuro) the CO was PISSED, and took control of the con before we slammed into the pier. Also the line from the tug to the ship parted.
ReplyDeleteI remember the Baglady when she was in Pearl and part of Desron 33. I was on the Ratshit at the time and then on the Barbell.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty good, but nothing beats the USS Cleveland (LPD-7) getting wedged in the locks of the Panama Canal.
ReplyDelete