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

...i fell in the shower once.

..."Lack of adhesive ducks"

I dont enjoy the open water.

I was a merchant seaman for six years. I was in a hurricane or three.

A few of the most memorable ones...

Had to walk an outrigger to work on gear in 6' - 8' seas on Mobile bay while commercial shrimping when I was 16. The outrigger was dipping 3' - 4' under the waves.

Had to jump overboard in the middle of the night while anchored in a strong current and free dive with a rope around my waist to free gear from our prop, also in a bad storm.
Cleared $92 for 6 days and nights of work on that trip.

Tuna fishing 100 mi. offshore in 10' - 12' seas on a 26' Negus for 2 days. Took 2 weeks to heal up. Jack-ass boat owner decided all the tuna were his after we split all expenses. Got 4 tuna steaks off that bastard.

Took a 20' Wellcraft across Mobile Bay in a bad summer storm. Had the boat and motor completely out of the water every other wave for over an hour.

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. Let's go fishing!!!

I hope ya didnt drop yer woman when ya fell too.

Gunner

Man, I got nuttin' on you guys! Lots of respect though! 10 years of fishing bass tournaments, but nothing too serious. A couple harry rides, for sure, but nothing the likes of which you guys have been through.

I've circled Walrus "Pods" ( ? chit I dunno what you call a gang of em') in a Twin Otter, up in the Winter Gustaf Adolf Sea, never seen one from the deck. The word "Surreal" is bang on.

Those well designed Tenders, Tugs, and small North Sea Freighters do indeed roll at the bloody DICK DOCK, but carried us through,....what ?

I oftimes wonder WTH would have transpired if we'd crossed swords with that vicious tropical monster in a NOT so deeply laden state of trim,.....

Talk about "Decks Awash" though,...

GTC

GTC

Here I am in the 'ice'. I wish to hell now that I actually owned a decent camera at the time.

Those buoy decks can get right sport when laid out with buoys, chain and 10,000 pound sinkers and working them in 15' seas.

My Dad was the "Port Captain / Marine Superintendent for the small tramp outfit,......and i remember him crunching #s with a slide rule, cigarette and beer close,....way into the night sometime.
He'd put on his "boiler suit" and start in the lower hold, working his way up INSPECTING alla' the rigging and tie down. That, as much as anything, was on our side in the incident related. Had that structural steel or one of those big yellow irons gone adrift ....

Alla' the debris from those Atco camps sloshing around on deck did about 3 years worth of "Chipping" on the decks and Gunwales, though. And while under repair in Colon, a LOT of Red lead was used.

GTC

Crossing the Tasman Sea in April onboard an Aegis Cruiser. Big waves breaking over the bow. Nothing like blue water and fish scales on deck.

Mine was a lot more positive. As the Air Force officer in charge of all media activity, I was invited to tour the Ohio -- the first Trident nuclear sub -- when she was at Port Canaveral for her first live missile trials. When I crossed the gangway, I was announced aboard by name (you Navy guys will know the right term for it). I was deeply honored.

Oh, and the sub was absolutely amazing.

Another was running simulated small boat attacks in a QST-35 (40 foot target boat with 4-496 ci engines onboard) on a amphib group off Moorhead City, NC. The Frigates would cross our approach and we would have to cross their wake. May not look it, but the wake off a small frigate is about two stories high. Good times, lots of fun.

I've used a BUNCH of Red lead in the 'day' along with some other bad stuff.







Here's the old girl pulling up a Jap midget sub off the Solomon Islands, early 1945.

LOVE those old straight stems,.....what Power Plant ?

I'm guessing a big set of Atlas, Buda, Or Cooper Bessemer ?

GTC

Not to butt in Cross but, I was in a couple engine rooms and saw 'Superior' and 'Waukesha-Pierce' engines, true cool monsters they were.

Gunner

On USS Midway in the north Pacific and in the Indian Ocean west of perth. Seeing "green water" coming over the bow of a carrier was pretty spectacular. I can imagine what the "small boys" that were escorting us were going through.

Everything was tied and/or chained down but stuff still broke loose. One of the big hoists on the ceiling of the hangar bay fell on the engine of an E-2c, destroying it.

My stateroom was up forward between the cats and in your rack it felt like you were getting "air time" when the bow would fall. I slept, or tried to sleep, with my arms stretched out to the side.

Persian Gulf at 9-10 o'clock at night and the sun is still up. Flat black seas and sea-snakes. Who would want to live there is beyond me.

Indeed, Waukeshas hold a particularly special place in my heart, we'll not again see their like.

Poured, scraped and spotted in in the babbit mains and rod ends on a big Buda once. Non-Turbo thumper that swung an enormous propellor under the stern of a classic off shore tug.

GTC

Grizzly hunt, June 1959.

Chuck and I put his 19-foot canoe into Rapids River, to go upstream from the point where sane canoeists go down the river.

Big chunks of winter ice were still coming down the river � fast � miniature icebergs at flank speed. Fending 'em off was quite the physical exercise � sorta like horizontal pole-vaulting. The gradient of the river was unignorably obvious � like the slope of a mountain road.

In hip boots and pulling a long painter, we waded that canoe up to the beaver ponds above all the glacial tributaries � calm, clear water above rapid silty water. Took us several strenuous hours. Got knocked on our butts several times. Built fires on gravel bars to ameliorate the shivers a bit (easier on the teeth, too!), and to wring most of the water out of our clothes.

At one point, I had to crawl out onto a sweeper and chop away some branches so we could go under it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Coming down-stream a few days later was fun, too. Took much less time than going up.

As bow paddle, I looked up into many waves coming over the bow a few feet high. Once, the current parked us high atop a boulder in the middle of the river, broadside to the current. No damage to the hull, but some little doin's getting off that boulder and properly aligned with the current again.

We were back at our put-in point in an hour or so.

No grizz but a lot of Arctic grayling, just a couple of minutes out of water so cold that scaling and gutting 'em was a painful chore (33�F, according to my pocket thermometer). The tastiest fresh-water fish that I ever ate!

Night fishing with one of my labs in my 12' duck boat. I happened to be taking a leak off the back when a beaver smacked it's tail and the lab up front decided to go in after him. Somehow I managed to knock the trolling motor to the side on my way out, so the boat just went in circles around me. Not sure how neither of the daredevils being drug behind didn't catch me.

Hell Yeah , IIRC the Mechanic told me the big Superior only turned 5/6 hundred RPM's, I cant imagine the torque these monsters must generate.

Gunner