a Tradition of Honor, a Legacy of Action

Okay, so I still have some good stories left over from my days at Gloucester, but I figured I'll skip ahead to more recent events for a few posts. I'm currently assigned to Coast Guard Cutter Seneca, a 270 foot cutter out of Boston, Massachusetts. I'll start with how I came to be here.

Around my five month mark at PATFOR SWA in Bahrain, about six detailers came to visit us and talk about where we wanted to be stationed after our deployment. Detailers are typically officers and are each in charge of handling the transfers of a particular rating. I had been looking at what was open in the Northeast's District One (D1) for BM2s and came up with a list of about ten units. I knew I needed to go afloat for my next tour so I was looking at anything from an 87' Patrol Boat to a 270' Medium Endurance Cutter. The big two things were I needed to get underway and I needed to stay somewhat local so my wife could continue her education.

I ended up choosing the BM2 billet on the Seneca. The detailer raised his eyebrows when I told him this bit because large cutters are often not very sought after. I explained that I wanted to do a tour on a large cutter while I'm still young and early in my career. That was that, I received my orders several months later. I didn't really have to complete for the billet for two reasons: Being overseas, I had priority over everyone else in the US that was transferring at the same time as me. Also, like I said before, a 270' normally doesn't sit very high on any one's wish list.

About four months after reporting to the Seneca, the other BM1 transferred and they moved me into his billet. I was originally there on orders as a BM2, but since I made BM1 the June before I arrived they did what's called a "fleet up" and I moved into the BM1 opening.

Now I'm almost a year into my tour on Seneca. I'm a Coxswain on two boat types and a Deck Watch Officer on the bridge. I work for the First Lieutenant (an 0-1 or 0-2) and a BMC. Under me, I have one BM2 (with another arriving this summer), three BM3s, and about fifteen non-rates.

I'll get into specifics about my time on Seneca in my next several posts.

Heavy Weather Coxswain School, pt 3

After having completed the required training, we were free to spend our remaining time playing in the surf zone. The Columbia River offers a very unique training environment for surf. The worst of it is to the north of the river entrance at Peacock Spit. We observed the surf conditions there during our first week. Because of the bottom characteristics in that area, there tends to be three different "sets", that is to say the breaking waves come in simultaneously from three directions. A key element to maneuvering in surf is "squaring up" where you keep you bow aimed directly into the waves. This is a difficult task when you surf out of just one direction, which is why we didn't conduct training at Peacock Spit.

Instead, we trained right inside the river entrance where the conditions were challenging but better suited for trainees. There were three different concepts we covered on the first day in the surf that would be the main focus of our remaining time at Cape D:

We would start at the end of the surf zone and work our way out into it using an "outbound" or an "up-swell run". We would come up to full power and then use helm adjustments and throttle management to negotiate our way through the breakers. The two main things were to not take the boat through a wave as it broke and to not get the boat airborne. The saying is "if it looks like a ramp, it is a ramp."

When we had to move perpendicular to the surf we used a "lateral run". Basically the same idea as the outbounds. We would make full speed and then judge the incoming breakers to see which ones we could pass in front of and which ones we had to allow to pass by before we kept going.

The most difficult of the three was the down-swell run. As waves interact with the ocean bottom and start to break, they also slow down. This allows the MLB to outrun or keep pace with the waves, something that isn't possible on the open ocean. Although the 47' accelerates fairly well, it never seems like enough when a twenty foot breaker is bearing down on the stern. If a breaker does catch up and passes underneath the boat, there is a very good change that the boat will be knocked down, rolled, or even worse, pitch-polled (tumbling end over end).

On our second or third day in the surf, I was coming of a lateral run and then transitioned to a down-swell run. As my bow lined up to run with the seas, I threw both throttles in full ahead. There's a long list of things to monitor while running down-swell. I was continually looking over my shoulder to find the next breaker. Is it gaining on me? Is it starting to break? Then I would check again in front of us. If you catch up to wave in front of you, you can bury the bow, or even climb up and over, plunging down in front of it violently. If the wave you're following starts to break, it leaves behind a carpet of aerated water. The propellers lose their traction in the foam and then if you don't get back into good water, you might lose enough speed to get hit by the wave behind you.

I checked over my shoulder as the bow lined up to follow the wave in front of me. There was a fifteen foot swell standing up about twenty feet off my stern. Holding to the "head on a swivel" mentality we were always applying, I returned my focus to the bow. The wave in front of me was getting away. I looked astern again, the wave was catching up, about fifteen feet behind us now and getting steeped as it prepared to break. There was nothing I could do but hope we accelerated. My right hand vainly pushed harder on the throttles, which were already full ahead. If I turned to get out of the path of the breaker, I would lose speed and most likely get hit broadside. Everyone was staring at the breaker, ten feet off now.

We finally met the speed of the breaker and moved farther ahead of it. We continued down-swell and exited the surf zone.

We graduated after the third week and returned to our units. After patiently waiting for the right weather in Gloucester, I got underway with one of our BM1s and became a certified Heavy Weather Coxswain.

Heavy Weather Coxswain School, pt 2

Okay, so I've been away for about half a year now. I've had a lot going on between the new unit, my fledgling marriage, and starting up a band with an old shipmate from Gloucester.

If you had questions earlier on, please post them as comments on this post. It will allow me to know what questions are still pending and I'll address them.

Although I have many new developments that are post-worthy, I've done a fair job so far of maintaining a timeline format for the order of posts. I'll pick back up where I left off, at Cape Disappointment.

As I said before, we were underway for our initial assessment. The instructor gave us a quick run through of the maneuvers he wanted us to replicate. I was taken aback by the way he manhandled the boat. He would throw the throttles into place, which was contrary to the mentality I had been constantly taught at the station. Back at my unit, and most units for that matter, you are constantly told "don't beat the boat up". Our instructor explained the reason behind his technique. He said, "The boat can take it. The throttles are electronic, not cable so the engines will know to accelerate and decelerate at the correct pace. Put the throttles where you want them and go. This is a Motor Lifeboat, not a 41 footer. Every time we come out here for the next three weeks, we'll be acting as if lives are at stake. After you start putting this qualification into use at your unit, lives will be at stake."

The seas that day were around twelve feet but the maneuvers were fairly straight forward:

Drive the boat into the seas. The key to this is not launching the boat off the face of a wave. You manage your throttles and weave though the crests to keep the hull in the water while still making the best speed possible.

Drive the boat with the seas (waves off the stern). The MLB can't outrun ocean waves. This means that every time a wave passes under the stern, it drops the boat's bow and you start to "surf". The center of gravity moves forward and if you show even a slight amount of your post or starboard side to the wave, it can quickly result in a "knockdown" which is exactly what is sounds like. If a knockdown is especially violent, it can become a rollover (once again, self explanatory).

Drive with the seas off the beam (off the side of the boat).

Back down in a straight line. We would place the throttles at full astern. Even the slightest wind or wave action would kick the stern to the side. You often had to bring one of the throttles to clutch ahead to return to the line you were following.

After we had all rotated through, we came back into the boat basin and tied up for the day. We had a quick debrief with the instructors. They said the forecast looked good. There had been several recent classes that hadn't had the correct conditions for the training so they didn't complete all of the curriculum.

As it turned out, we completed all the required tasks in just the first week. On Monday of Week 2, they asked the class what we wanted to do for the remaining ten days of training.

We answered, "Surf."

Heavy Weather Coxswain School, pt1

In the spring of 2007, I went to the National Motor Lifeboat School (NMLBS) in Washington to attend Heavy Weather Coxswain School. A quick bit of background information first:

Station Gloucester was designated as a "heavy weather station". This is determined for stations Coast Guard wide by analyzing sea conditions throughout the year. In the end, they fall into three categories. If they have breaking surf (typically at the mouth of a river or inlet) then they are surf stations. The next step down is heavy weather stations and then just normal stations.

Surf stations and heavy weather stations maintain at least one 47' MLB and have to have specially qualified coxswains to operate in the heavier sea conditions. When I became a 47' coxswain, it was as a "basic" coxswain which meant I could operate the boat in up to 8 foot seas and 30 knot winds and not in surf. In order to drive in the rougher seas seen in the winter months at Gloucester, I would have to become a Heavy Weather Coxswain.

Therefore, I received orders to the school and packed my uniforms, gear, and some civilian clothes and reported to the NMLBS. I was warned by a few people before leaving that my experience would be a negative one, that the instructors were very short tempered and I would not enjoy my time there.

We started out in the classroom. I found that myself and three other BM2 [we were all BMs there with the exception of two Navy enlistees (didn't expect to see them there)] were the the low men on the totem pole. The rest of the class were mostly BM1s and then two Chiefs (BMCs). The instructors were each assigned three trainees and after some quick intros from both the instructors and the class, we broke up into our crews that we would remain in for the next three weeks.

My crew was a BM2 from Point Allerton (the station south of Gloucester) and a BM1 from Maine. Our instructor began in words close to these:

"My name is Rusty. I like my name. Yes, I'm a BM1 but we're in a learning environment now so I'd prefer we forgo the military bearing. I'm very passionate about boat handling in heavy weather so if I raise my voice, it's not because I'm angry, it's because I'm trying to get through to you."

Fair enough. He explained that the routine would be what we were all used to. Something we like to call "Crawl, walk, run." The first step was going to be to review fundamentals to see what level each of us were operating at, both in terms of knowledge about the MLB and how we operated it when we were driving.
After some time in the classroom discussing safety procedures we donned our drysuits and got underway. Each boat was complimented with an instructor (all of them were BM1s that were qualified Surfmen) and then a boat engineer and a crewmember. The docks at the school were right in the path of a very stiff current so Rusty told us, "Okay, now I'm only going to moor and unmoor the boat for today to show you how to deal with the current. After that, each of you will take turns each day. You'll notice these pilings around the docks have a lot of dings and scrapes in them. Those are from students that didn't pay attention an crashed into them."

We got underway and then exited the mouth of the Columbia River to begin our evaluations...

More to follow, and sorry for not posting so long. I've been moving.

Coast Guard Journal

I added a link on the sidebar for the Coast Guard Journal. It was stood up by the Coast Guard in February this year and has several interesting first hand stories of Coasties throughout the fleet, but mostly focusing on the CGC Bertholf.

I'm curious as to whether the ratio of Bertholf posts as opposed to other units is due to motivation by HQ, motivation from the command of the Bertholf, or just the crew taking its own initiative to inform the rest of the service and the public about what the Coast Guard's newest cutter is like.

Whatever the case may be, it would be nice to see more posts (despite being almost six months old, the post count is still in the thirties) and to see more firsthand accounts of what life is like for a Coastie. It's great that the Coast Guard is using the internet to spread deckplate level information to the public but there's always room for improvement.

"Gloucester. They're always from Gloucester."

I was looking through the Coast Guard Directives and found something kind of cool. The new edition of the Coast Guard Medals and Awards Manual was released in May and guess what's on the cover? A painting of an old Gloucester rescue! A print of this was actually in the day room of the station back when I was working there.

Okay, so maybe it's not that cool.

I noticed that over the course of the three SAR updates I made, the blog got over two hundred hits. Whether this is due to the topic of the posts or the fact that Peter Stinson of an Unofficial Coast Guard Blog linked the post is debatable but I'll try posting some more sea stories in the near future. It'll be a good change of pace for the blog in a any case.

This blog is meant to serve a specific purpose. That purpose can be shaped by your feedback. If there's an aspect of Coast Guard life you're curious about then feel free to throw it in the comments section.

baptism by fire, part 3

This'll be the last post concerning that weekend in 2005. I can't properly frame this last one as it was three years ago and all I'm sure of was it was either on Saturday or Sunday of the weekend in question.

We'll roll the last two cases into one post as they were both over rather quickly.

The harbor was crowded with vessel traffic the entire weekend. There was a great deal of recreational powerboats, sailing vessels, and as always in Gloucester, commercial fishing vessels. I was in the communications center with the Officer of the Day when the distress call came in. As the watchstander began copying the information from the call, the OOD hit the SAR alarm and piped "Person in the water, number six buoy. 25' boat crew!"

I raced down the brow to the boat and climbed behind the helm as I had twice already that weekend. The crew joined me and we did a quick risk assessment before getting underway. It's mandatory to complete a Green, Amber, Red or "GAR" model before launching a boat to ensure crew safety. It was more expedient to do it on the boat because the comm center was now hectic with phones ringing, radios squelching, and nextels chirping as they commanded the mission.

We raced across the harbor with the blue lights flashing and the siren wailing to warn vessels of our hurry. The reported position was a short distance from the station, in the center of Gloucester Harbor. This was a blessing for the men in the water because it increased their chances of being picked up by a good samaritan but on the other hand they could be run down by a vessel that didn't see them in the channel. We discussed this on our way to the scene.

Luckily for the two men in the water, they were spotted by another boat when their small skiff capsized and they were promptly fetched from the water. We transferred the two men onto the 25' and headed back to the station to get them medical attention. The two men were an elderly gentleman and his son. The son was doing fine but his father seemed very disoriented and confused.

We tied up at the dock and brought the men inside the station. The son called their family who were in town and were at the station shortly. The old man became more aware now that he was on dry land and left without needing any medical care. I checked the case file when the watchstander had completed it and found that from the time of notification to the time we arrived on scene was about six minutes. Not terribly important considering the men had already been helped by nearby boaters, but it was still cause to give everyone a pat on the back for being "Semper Par".

The other case came in the middle of an open house we were holding that weekend. A large fishing boat was getting underway and leaving the channel when they had a reduction gear casualty. The "red gear" is basically the same as a transmission for a car, which meant the stern trawler could no longer engage its propellers and was drifting forwards with no way to stop.

As before, the SAR alarm rang but this time it was the 47' Motor Life Boat that got the call. It was obvious that towing would be needed and the 47' had the highest towing limitation at 150 tons. The coxswain started barking orders to the crew as they backed from their berth. Fifty yards away, the trawler was drifting towards a pier with a couple dozen people on it. Despite common sense (about 150 tons of steel vs. wooden pier) the people remained in place and seemed captivated by the 47' coming in to put over towing lines.

It was very close. The 47' got two lines over and couldn't wait for the other two. The coxswain started backing down with over 800 horsepower at his fingertips. As he saw that the lines were handling the strain, we could all hear the twin diesels throttle up to the limit. Black smoke poured out of the exhaust ports as everyone held their breath.

It was just enough at the right time. The bow of the trawler made it within ten feet of the pier before it was pulled away by the MLB, accompanied by the applause of the onlookers. Despite the fact that I wasn't on the 47' for the tow, I thought it was intense enough to mention as long as I was on the topic of SAR.