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.