Another sea story about my understanding of sailboats.

Early on during my Ordinary Seaman years I was given the opportunity of being a helmsman for a tug and barge that was as big a a ship. It was a HUGE barge and held 400K+ barrels of oil.

While we were coming up the Delaware River with a load of crude a sailboat crossed the bow and I sat the skipper look pretty concerned.

Most tug skippers hate sailboats and in many cases with good reason. Weekenders are often a royal PITA. However most serious cruisers know their $hit. Unfortunately the weekenders outnumber the cruisers.

Anyway I said to the skipper "He's going to cross our bow cleanly and then if he thinks he has enough water he'll leave the channel and either keep going or just luff until he can time crossing our stern."

He told me to watch my helm because he was calling the shots. I noticed I was about a degree off course and corrected. The AB who was actually supposed to be on the helm smirked.

Sure enough the sailboat left the channel a bit pointer her bow into the wind and luffed until he figured when to continue his tack. When he started his tack the skipper expressed concern.  He then filled his sails and continued his tack and crossed our stern as pretty as you please with about 100 feet to spare. The sailor was pretty good.

Later the skipper asked me how I knew what the sailboat was going to do. I told him that I've done the same thing any number of times. It later surprised me when I discovered most tug skippers and ship masters don't know much about sailboats. One would think otherwise and I was pretty surprised when I figured it out.

One tug skipper that did know owned her own sailboat. She was one of the few female tug skippers I sailed with and when she was a mate she saved my bacon by storming into the office and telling the fleet manager that the captain that reported my shipmate and I for talking trash to a dock man was FOS. She pointed out that we had been working with those guys for years.

I told the skipper about the time I had to deal with 4 ships on the Fraiser River in British Colombia. When I saw the first ship coming up on me I simply got on channel 13 and told him my plan. He said he was good with it and commented I was the first small sailboat to use channel 13 to call him. He wished everyone did.

He later called the next ship coming and said I knew what I was doing and to give a shout which the other three did as they came upon me. The third ship asked me if I had sailed my boat all the way from Kodiak. I had and told him I did because Canadian parcel post rates were too high and I couldn't afford them. He laughed.

The skipper was pretty impressed with my experience under sail but I cautioned him that there was a big difference between a competent cruiser and a weekender idiot and that it was hard to tell the difference until things got interesting. I also pointed out that most sail boaters don't monitor the VHF as often as they should.

Later the skipper gave me glowing report which helped me with a promotions further down the line..

 

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One of the things I love listening to are

stories about young people that joined the service instead of going to college because sometimes you hear a pretty good story.

I've heard about youngsters getting out of the Navy and starting at six figures after a six year hitch as a nuclear type. Others after a hitch or two go into medical fields and do well. 

My all time favorite military success story was an MD that fixed my foot that had been a high school dropout that had gotten drafted during the Vietnam war that lucked out and became a medic and stayed in the service and took advantage of every program he could and became an MD. He retired as an LTC and stayed in the reserves after he retired. He was promoted to colonel in the reserves.

I have said that college is not really needed to be successful and that in many cases puts a young person behind the 8-ball if they don't enter college with a solid plan. There are too many apprenticeships and programs out there to say college is the only route to success.

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Sea story time!

I was looking at my career trophies and came across my U-boat skipper's hat. Yup a genuine (reproduction) German U-boat skipper's cap.

I suppose now you are expecting that I singlehandedly boarded a U-boat and captured. I will admit that I have been a swashbuckler at times but not in this case.

I was in New York Harbor on a 368 foot oil barge I was running at the time. We were being pushed by a company tug headed off with a load of (most likely) jet headed for Boston to full the tanks feeding Logan. 

A foreign flagged ship was coming our way and the usual bridge to bridge passing arrangements were being made between the tug and the ship. The tug had suggested a basic, simple 1 whistle (port to port) pass. 

The ship skipper must have not been taking the advice of the pilot they had on board because he arrogantly demanded a 2 whistle  (starboard to starboard) pass. while we could safely do this it simply made no sense. The officer was simply being difficult.

It's also a risky proposition. Scratch so much as a chip of paint if you ignore advice from a pilot and it's completely on you. While pilots are not God, the captain is. The pilot is the captain's consigliere. Ignore him at your peril.

The passing arrangements were being made on Channel 13, the bridge to bridge channel.

I had been listening and I had heard it and chimed in. The conversation sounded like this

"Tug Sally Ann, Calypso Runner."

"Calypso Runner."

"How about one whistle?"

"Two vistles, Sally Ann."

"Ohhhh kayyy. Two whistles." The tug sounded annoyed but too tired to argue. The whole thing smelled. I knew the pilot would have advised the skipper of Calypso Runner that a one whistle pass was the most convenient for both parties. The captain was just being obstinate or something. This is where I jumped in. I was sitting next to the radio.

"Tug Sally Ann, Untersee 235." I threw out to the tug.

Of course he recognized my voice and in a mildly curious tone answered "Untersee 235, Sally Ann."

"Outer doors open, tubes flooded." I said.

"Copy" he replied. 

A second later the Calypso Runner was heard from again. "Sally Ann, Calypso Runner. We can pass on one whistle."

"Sally Ann, one whistle. Thank you."

This wasn't the end of it. Coast Guard Traffic in the Battery monitors the channel.

"Coast Guard Traffic, Untersee 235."

"Untersee 235, I answered.

Untersee 235 you are not showing up on radar. where are you?" Traffic asked.

'Traffic, vee Untersee boot," I replied.

There was a pause. Traffic came back and in a mildly amused tone of voice replied, "Untersee 235, be advised we are passing responsibility for you to the United States Navy. Out."

Another company tug had heard the exchange and recognized my voice because inside of fifteen seconds I got a call asking me what the conversation was all about. I asked the caller if he had pictures.

He said he didn't. So my reply was simply "To quote Richard Nixon, deny it even if they have pictures."  

Several minutes later after we had gotten past Calypso Runner the tug called and the mate thanked me for helping him out.

It must have tickled the tug crew's funnybone because they scraped up a few bucks and bought me the hat. I was called Kapitan Piccolo for a few months after.

The hat fit pretty good and later on I finally figured out why my (rarely worn) baseball cap disappeared. They wanted my hat size.

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Hash for breakfast again.

I had it yesterday and used a half-can. I might as well finish it up this morning.

Lately I've had a hankering to wake up to cold pizza so I might order a pie later on. 

I think that because it is raining it might be a pretty good day to go people watching at the mall later this afternoon. I have not been there in quite a while since the last winter storm.

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I just realized something.

Between the time I got out of the army and the time I met my second wife over a decade later I was one of those guys that is staying single to avoid the pitfalls of marriage. With a 50% marriage failure rate many men are simply not dating. I can't say as I blame them.

During that decade I dated a lot but it was strictly for fun and I made it clear up front. Fair is fair. Leading someone on is bull$hit.

At the time I was soured on marriage and not in the market for a 20 something fertile woman to have a bunch of babies with. That opened a much wider field of women for me to have fun with.

Of course I was in no shape to marry anyway because my life what total chaos but I had a lot of fun and 40 years later I can certainly understand why so many men are not interested in marriage.

With a 50% failure rate a lot of people have decided that having to live in a fleabag and pay bills for an ex and three kids isn't worth the risk.

Personally if I was looking for a traditional marriage I certainly would not shop locally. I'd probably be looking overseas.

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A quiet Saturday would be nice

but it is not to be.

yard work and errands have stepped in.

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Pete Hegseth has done a lot for the military.

Say what you will, but because of Pete the military is now pound for pound more lethal.

The ONLY purpose of the military is to kill people and break things. The more people that can be killed and the more things that can be broken in the shortest amount of time the better the military is. It really IS that simple.

Anyone incapable of being deployed is useless and should be released from service. This includes wounded that are not expected to recover, It also includes transgenders that require medications that are not commonly available in the field and those not mentally capable of serving in the field.

(Yes there are very, very rare exceptions. Look un Grace Hopper who was retired at age 60 and recalled to active duty shortly after and served another 20 years. Grace had exceptional talents in  computer science and she made the Navy more lethal. Deploying Grace would have been a waste of talent.) 

Pete's also given the boot to a number of generals for various reasons which I am good with because we are far too top heavy as it is. He's also thrown out backstabbers that refuse to get with the program and seem to have forgotten who their boss is.

Replacing DEI with a meritocracy insures the best people will rise to the top without regard to race, creed or color. Nobody really cares what color somebody is so long as they're the best and brightest we have.

One thing about the elimination of DEI is that when one sees a minority in uniform of any rank is that you know they have been promoted because of their competence and not their color. That says something.

Still, the bottom line is I think Pete's doing a pretty good job. 

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I'm calling this one now.

Right after the mid terms Congress will shut the war in Iran off and everyone will come home. 

Iran will go back to work and inside a decade they will be nuclear armed. Immediately Israel will be nuked and that will be followed by the United States being nuked.

Of course among the survivors there will be a big argument over who is at fault. 

The Right will say we should have let Donald Trump finish what he started and the Left will say it's Trump's fault for poking at Iran.

It won't really matter much who gets blames because what is done is done. 

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