Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's the most "Nautical" moment you've ever had?

My most nautical moment involved two whales, a skiff, a large net and a baseball bat.

Blows were thrown but I believe all parties survived.

While not neccesarily "nautical" but most definitely "marine", there was also the dumbazz with a gaff and a dead, very bloated, seal.

Some of these experiences are awesome - we have some REAL sailors here. Thx.

I dunno Randy??? Last thing on my mind was getting sea sick. Never had happened before even when watching guys puke in the galley, and has never happened again. I think it was more smoke and fumes than anything else.

I had a lot of fun high seas during my career in the Navy.
The most memorable is a north Atlantic cruise aboard the USS Bordelon DD 881, in 1974.
North of the Artic circle, for a few days, seas really rough, main deck off limits due to being awash.
We had a cable across the ASROC deck. We had to wear a life jacket (kapok) and use a secured line to the cable to go for and aft.
Roughest seas I was ever in.

Every once in awhile for blues inspection.
14 years in the 'bees and no fleet time, which was just fine with me.

About 15 of us 20-somethings on a sloop headed from Florida to the caribean. We had a capt but he was mostly drunk and useless. We got caught in a tropical depression. Damn rough night. The mast broke loose and went overboad about midnight or so. It had the lights and radio antenna so we thought wee should do something. One cable was still holding the mast and the thing is banging the side of the boat. So naturally me and 3 other guys decide to pull it back on board. I take a guys hand, step out over the little cable at the edge of the deck, and lean way down to grab the mast. We got it back on board. Pretty good work considering the 12' seas, wind, and rain and pitch black.

Somebody should have thought about wearing a life vest. Never cross my mind.

Her name was Elena. She became a hurricane after crossing westward into the Gulf. August 1985.

Good times. Damn wild ride.

Transiting about 18 hours on the surface in the USS Simon Bolivar SSBN 641(G) in March of 1993 going into Halifax, Nova Scotia to medevac a crew member with kidney stones. Why you may ask? The 1993 Storm of the Century. Every crew member was sick, and I mean everyone waves breaking 20 foot or more over the sail. Makes me sick remembering it. Submarines are terrible in rough seas when surfaced. The sweetest sound I ever heard in my life was the diving alarm when we finally reached the diving point after that deal

1993 Storm of the Century

Another time off the Florida coast Atlantic side, while at periscope depth the OOD observed a fishing boat with a "distress light". The boat was surfaced near the fishing boat. The OOD ask the guys onboard if they needed assistance? The guys in utter shock and disbelief answer "No" and explain the distress light is part of their fishing gear. The boat was rigged for dive and we submerged again. You know that nobody believed those guys when they got back to shore and told their story...

Last one was turning the fire hoses on the Green Peace idiots every time we went to see...

Twice I've come close to lifting the handle on Davy Jones' locker, both in the north Atlantic in winter. Been caught in a squall or three, one in particular where one of two OB motors had just quit, some 30 nm south of ACK. Seas went from easy twos to twelves. With the nose buried a couple feet into the green every other wave, we had no choice but to head dead into the wind and quartering seas. We got the bloody shyt kicked out of us. Another goosebump raising ride in the north Pacific, off the coast of Japan. A typhoon that was supposed to bypass by 100 miles, didn't.

I like Rocky's nautical type tale better.

USS Hawes decommissioning ceremony at the port of Boston. Only Navy vessels in the American fleet bearing the Hawes name is allowed to fly the Jolly Roger.

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/USS_Hawes_%28FFG-53%29.html

On that day, a local man, a vet from the Vietnam era was honored. He is the gent in the ball cap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_G._Kelley














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Windward passage, 30' seas in a 36' sloop, beating into the gale for a day and two nights under storm sails trying to avoid landfall on Cabo Maisi, Cuba. Winter of '75.

Don't know if this counts but I will post anyway. About 4 years ago I was floating the nolachuky river on jan 26. The river was frozen all the way across in washington co. We ha 21 consecutive days where it never got above freezing, for Tennessee that something. It was 26 degrees that morning and after a slowmorning of decoying ducks we desided to float. About 2 miles from the truck I flipped the pokeboat I was hunting out of. Ice on the water waiders on and shotgun in hand. I was so tired when I got to the bank I could barely stand up. I swam in moving water about 30 yards and had to crawl over blowdowns to get to shore. got all the cotton off and put the fleece back on while my buddy knobby started a fire. We hunted the next day, never even got a runny nose.

(My post above was from the 640 boat Ben Franklin from the early eighties)

I was Engineering Officer of the Watch one time on Maneuvering Watch, I don't remember where we were leaving but we were getting pasted. We had maybe eight to ten people in Maneuvering, which was quite a crowd, phone talkers and trainees I guess.

No one had been sick but everyone was green to the gills, we were rolling like crazy but everyone was holding it together. Then the Electrical Operator lost it and puked into a clear plastic bag, that was enough for the Reactor Operator sitting right beside him, then it was a chain reaction (we were Nukes, you know) and almost everyone in the Room but me hurled. I was smart enough to avert my eyes when I saw what was coming.

Don't even get me started telling stories about blowing schitters inboard.

Ahh the memories, I've done both the lookout and schitters inboard. At least I had a heads up on back blowing the schitters, my brother and uncle were bubbleheads too...

Did you know an MT named Barto on the Franklin?

Hurricane Juan in the Gulf of Mexico in 1985. I was working on an offshore platform and by the time the decision was made to evacuate it was too late. We came through the storm in a 110 ft work boat. The captain logged in 25-30 ft. seas.

It was the first time I was seasick. Absolutely miserable day and night.

The oil companies are much better now about evacuating for hurricanes.

We sailed for years in the New England area.

Never had a problem.

There you go, this is my daughter's and mine own most nautical moment to date, and we both reckon it is too cold, too wet, and too deep to expand on the experience.

Flat seas within sight of land. Impressive.

I took this from a breakwater in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela at age 15,......The "JEM" was a classic small European Motorship, Diesel Main and Aux ( Generator and Compressor) auxilliaries. I got my "Junior (4th) Engineer's ticket in her, and knew her Engine room like the back of my hand by then. Wish all to hell I'd gotten a pic of the ANCIENT, wood fired, steam powered cattle boat that was tie foward of her,....I MAY have some on slides, yet to be digitalized.
Anyhoo, she was fitted with the "smaller economy option" 1800 shaft HP rated MAK 10 cylinder turbo diesel, and MAN 5 cylinder Aux. The bean counters out-voted Dad (he owned 15%)and voted down his choice of the same footprint, large bore, longer stroke 3600 HP option.

The lack of raw power saw this ship compromised by strong currents more than once. Routinely pizzed off the Pilot's association, and had a few wrecks on the Miss. River (and elsewhere), due directly to that lack.

Oh well,she was what she was,... I pretty much grew up on her, and from her decks wandered into manhood. We knew of and periodicallly saw identical builds with the big engine,....they HAULED ASS.



In the closing scene of "Farewell to the King" starring Nick Nolte (pretty good flick),....an IDENTICAL vessel is briefly panned.

built in Norderwerft, Bremen Germany in the very late 1950s.

GTC

good picture, good post.

Sycamore

We pushed her into some pretty REMOTE and primitive estuaries and on occasion up Rivers to load Mahogany Logs. I'm talking about the masts and upper works brushing trees, Monkeys raining out and running around on deck,.....and dugout canoes with natives carrying ML shotguns remote.

I didn't "Grow up in New Jersey" Syc,.....The backwaters of Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, and most every damn country betwixt more like it. At 16 I'd transitted the "ditch" 16 times,....and was allowed to answer the main engine telegraph in moving her through the locks. Sure,....Dad being the Honcho helped a bit, .....but I recollect being taken down HARD when I failed to get something right.

I'm damned glad I grew up when and where I did, and wish that more of today's Dad's had the sense enough to cut their young lads loose from mama's apron strings and let em' be what they really need to be.

The vacant stare, finger and eye on the handheld zombies that I'm seeing are from a different PLANET than that I grew up on.

Chit, ...a different UNIVERSE.

I like this place cuz' there are so many other characters that have similar backrounds and attitudes.

GTC