someone might think the ship was lost if they find the life ring and not the ship

Aye. Tha' be true, but some thoughtful Sailor made sure th' life ring was made fast to th' railin' proper.

i'm sure they got a little more water inside than they liked

They did indeedy. Arrr.

Reminds me of a scene from the Destroyermen series. And makes me doubly glad the stack wasn't swamped.

the vents were along with doors and such at least if they saw the blow coming they would've dogged the hatches and made sure the cargo hatches were sealed and closed

Yeah, but the stack leads down into the boilers. The STACK, not the vents.

Still an issue just not as potentially explosive depending on the cargo and amount of water that gets on board

...Dude, just scroll down and read Steamfox's comment on just how bad water down the stack would be.

Wasn't arguing water down the stack would be a disaster commenting that water in the cargo holds or even on the hatches could be nasty..

I remember reading a book titled something like "Thirty Months in a Tin Can" which was about the men who served in the Fletcher Class Destroyers of World War Two. I can agree with your statement because had the cold sea water gotten down that stack and hit the superheater drums atop both boilers, the resulting steam explosion might have blown the ship to pieces.

Good eye there Eviscerator.

Yeah, Taylor Andersen really helps illustrate just how...fragile even steel ships are out in the ocean.

How many times did they have to plug holes in Walker? Even before she was sunk by Amagi? Or after they raised her again?

And they certainly had to really do some work on Amerika.

I have no idea what you're referring to, but I believe I understand your meaning. Even the raising and repairing of the USS Oklahoma in WW II was a massive engineering feat in itself, even though through all that trouble the derelict floundered and went straight to the bottom while being towed in a storm.

It is a comment towards the Destroyermen series.

About the Wickes class destroyer USS Walker (DD-163). Got punched quite fierce in the course of the series, Once or twice ten inch shells went right through the hull of the ship as there wasn't enough armor to set of the fuses.

You should read that. It is certainly interesting for furs like us. And contains masses of info about the life of a Destroyerman.

Well that certainly might be worth looking into. My friend "Ed" who I believed was one of the smartest chefs in the world served aboard the USS Gillespie (DD 609) in the closing days of WW II mentioned the Fletcher class Destroyers were quite lightweight, which most likely gave the vessels their high speed. He mentioned that even Five inch shells would go through some structures like it was tinfoil, but most of the crew feared getting hit by a well placed 14 inch shell. "Anywhere they'd hit would be Fuel bunker, Ammo storage or high pressure steam." Yeah. I do have a marked respect and admiration for those sailors who served aboard Destroyers.

considering the steam used for turbines even on modern ships cold sea water could nasty though less chance of an explosion..

But this isn't a modern ship.

That's a nice sub ya got there.

Ooo O oooO OO
O OOO oo OoO *

S'long as they don't get water down the stacks they'll make it!

Ever read the alternate history books by Taylor Anderson?
They're quite fun! http://www.taylorandersonauthor.com/ If you want to take a look!

I really have got to see if I can find some of these books because the titles and cover art really "Grabs" me. To the Barnes and Noble! ChaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGE!

The library works too, if one near you carries them!
They're well written!

Ah yeas. And here my best friend James is a chief Librarian to boot.

That helps! My mom is also a librarian, she oversees multiple small libraries in nearby towns.

I like it... reminds me of a story I heard of an aircraft carrier in heavy weather. One of its escorts was taking green water of the bridge and signaled, asking permission to slow. When the carrier told them 'no' they signaled back asking permission to surface.

V.

Oh, that's delightful, and a bit scary too. My 7th grade shop teacher had a story about a ship and the Destroyer he was on in WW II colliding at night and the larger ship's bow scraped along side the smaller ship, almost it's length. A Sailor on the larger ship who was stationed on the bow in a fit of panic jumped from the bigger ship's deck and landed safely on the destroyer. The sailor was returned to his ship shortly after the incident, but his crewmates called him up in a mock "Court Marshal" for "Jumping Ship" in the middle of action.

I like it!

I saw 60 foot seas on the old CGC Duane off of Greenland somewhere as well as horizon to horizon ice. One night we did a 54 degree roll; just shy of rolling over. She was a sturdy steamship now an artificial reef near where I live.

(Eyes get all big.) The Duane was a steamship you say? I had to immediately do a "Wiki" search on the USS Duane, and sure enough the article listed her as being "Disposed" of in 1987, just off the southern tip of Florida, near Key Largo. I could say I've got a certain fondness for Cutters as well because the USCG had a similar ship moored close to the station in San Pedro, and I'd see that trim vessel with it's bold red and deep blue paint job whenever I'd go out for deep sea fishing trips leaving that Port.

I figure cutters like the USS Duane were Turbine driven much like Destroyers, so I figure the Duane most likely had twin boilers and the Turbine engines set up in a similar fashion. This might be a worthwhile project to do further research in.

we used to use the third level of the boiler room as a sauna. There was a head and two or three showers just aft of the mess deck on the port side and in there was a water tight door leading to the level. She did have two steam turbines but we had towing props so best we could do was about 18 knots. She ran on bunker C which pretty much was crude oil. We actually would do refueling drills while underway. There is a similar cutter preserved in Key West.

V.

Heh, reminded me of a story from Rhein-Mann airfield. A fighter and a C-124 were facing one another on a taxiway, and the fighter called the tower asking what the Globemaster's intentions were. The pilot, hearing this, opened up the clamshell doors in the transport's nose and said over the radio "I'm going to eat you."

*laughs...

V.

LOL! That one should be in the Reader's Digest "Humor in Uniform" section if that magazine is still being printed.

A friend of my uncle's was on a destroyer during the Korean War and he told a story of being in a really bad storm with a task group of several ships. There was a frigate next to them that got hit by a rouge wave and capsized. It hung upside down for a few seconds then another wave hit and they flipped back up. Luckily they inverted so fast water didn't get into the boiler. They hit a few resets and continued on their merry way. Had they lost propulsion they would have sank.

I have been on the sail of a submarine as lookout in seas this bad. We were transiting on the surface during one of the worst hurricanes in decades. We were on the surface in State 9 (Douglas Scale) seas which is as bad as it gets. Operationally speaking, submarines are requited to transit on the surface if they enter another submarine's operational area. To prevent collisions with a submarine that no one knows their position except the crew onboard, other subs have to be on the surface in that area. If you've ever seen Das Boot, that is exactly what it is like. Since subs don't have proper keels, they are 300 ft sewer pipes and storms toss and roll them mercilessly. We had footprints on the walls if that gives you any indication of how bad it was. In the sail we were on a roller coaster ride from hell. We took a wave like the one shown in The Perfect Storm and we didn't go over it, we went through it. Being a submarine, no big deal except me and the officer on watch were underwater being dragged by our safety harness and watching water flow down the sail hatch swirling like a toilet flush. I tried to grab the hatch and close it but my tether was too short since I was in the aft lookout station. Seconds later we popped out of the wave like a cork and both myself and the oow were strewn about on the sail like stranded fish. Once the last of the water drained down the hatch we could hear the flooding alarm going off. We then got the order to clear the bridge and rig for dive. We dismantled the bridge box and windshield in record time and we scrambled down the ladder and closed the hatch just as another wave hit. They had closed the lower hatch as we were evacuating the bridge so the water that came in as we closed the hatch flooded the sail a bit and let me tell you that is scary. We had to wait once the hatch was secured for the water to drain. That was the coldest and most miserable I've ever been before or after.

Wow! I'm speechless. You actually lived through a situation like the one depicted in this simple cartoon. I truly feel awestruck and humbled by your tale, and I really, really appreciate your sharing it. Thank you.

wow!... just wow!

V.

Bloop?

Bubble bubble bubble...

"I think I'll join the Army. ...It's much too noisy in the Navy."

I've heard there are rescue / storm ships designed to automatically bob to the surface and right themselves in the event of being overturned or submerged.

Ah haah! Some of them, or something similar to them are "Standard Equipment" on off shore oil rigs in the North Sea too.

Difficult to distinguish whether that was snow or water. If they were caught in the arctic ice, snow could have accumulated, so the picture would still work.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... But I had a difficult time enough rendering the stormy sky in pencil. That angry sea requires far more illustrating skill than I have at the current time. I can't help but agree with you that the Ocean's surface should be mostly black. Maybe I'll add that whenever I ink the cussed thing.

Just some line shading to darken one side of the waves, a bit of sea foam and white crests might do the trick. You probably don't need to make the whole surface dead black.

Heh, I'd love to see the crew's reaction if they visited the great lakes and got caught in one of our November storms...

Do tell! This recent November 10th marked the fortieth anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of tho more famous Taconite freighters which once plied the Lakes.

I still would like to one day stand on the shore of Lake Superior, (Hopefully in late Spring.) and look out over it's vast expanses. I've read there's a maritime museum in Illinois which has a working triple expansion engine being slowly cranked by an electric motor.

...And of course there's the USS Badger, which is a former car ferry, turned tourist boat.

Here's another museum with one. I think you might like the other attractions there quite a bit too... http://www.wisconsinmaritime.org/

Also, the Badger is still ferrying cars from Manitowoc to Ludington! http://www.ssbadger.com/

OH! The USS Cobia is a GATO class submarine. One of my favorites. Exploring that boat would be worth the trip alone.

I keep wanting to do a 'circle trip'. Manitowoc to Ludington on the SS Badger, Ludington-Kalamazoo to visit the Air Zoo to see the Ascender prototype, then down to Chicago to hit the Museum of Science and Industry for the U-boat. Have to do it during the summer as the Badger only operates during the summer months.

I'm not certain if you live in the Great Lakes area or not, but the S.S. Badger has it's employment application available in a downloadable version on their website. I was almost tempted to sign up myself, but I figured the commute from Southern California to Northern Michigan would kill me.

I do but I already have a full-time job. Even from down here in the Madison-Milwaukee area the commute would be murder.

Oh wow! You live near Madison. (I have old friends there.) Yes. that would be one heck of a commute. Glad to read you're full time employed too.

Oh and as an aside if you haven't read it, I highly recommend the book 'Last Stand if the Tin Can Sailors', an account of the Battle of Samar. If you do pick it up, have a handkerchief handy: the personal accounts of the battle and its' aftermath will have you in tears. In the words of one of the destroyer skippers as he took his ship into harm's way, "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do all the damage we can."

reminds me of a story tidbit from the Lucky Luke comic books, where a Mississippi steamboat capt'n tells the story of a highwater followed by a lowwater so fast the fish were momentarily caught in midair to break their gills in the dry riverbed...

Ha ha! Yes, big rivers can be as mysterious, treacherous and temperamental as any ocean, and riverboatmen have their share of tales to tell. I like this "Yarn" because it would be difficult to prove, but there is a good chance it could happen, given the right conditions. If I recall correctly there is, or was a place near the bay of Fundy... Alma, New Brunswick, I believe where the tides dramatically drop daily more than ten feet or more. Some boats at dockside need to be cradled up for awhile until the bay fills back up again. I've always wanted to see that place ever since I was a youngster. I just thought it was strange and exciting to see full sized fishing boats "High and Dry" for a while.

So why not?

true. nature provides us with many strange things. ^^

Aye. Indeed she do, Matey.