"Oh, no"

“Hey Boats, how fast are you going?”

“A shade over 25 knots.”

“OK.”

“Hey Boats, any chance you can come left and not aim at the great big, stone break wall?”

That was not a banner day. 

We had finished up a patrol in Buzzards Bay and we left the OPAREA a little early…we were the Charlie Boat so there would be someone coming on to be B6 boat so I wasn’t overly concerned.  We left, due the MONSTROUS storm that had enveloped New England over night.  It was all out of the Northeast, a good 50 knots.  We had hoped to make it home before the worst of it; instead were going transit during the worst of it.

We made it through the canal, no problems.  We could feel the wind but the canal kept it calm.  We didn’t even make it out of channel on the east side and water was already breaking over the bow, soaking the anchor detail.  By the time we cleared the buoys and headed north the waves were on our stern.  These might have been the biggest seas I had ever seen; at least 20 footers with bigger sets rolling through.  There were times when we were in the trough that I was looking up at the waves while on the bridge.

That was disconcerting.

A couple factors were in our favor.  It was daylight…these kinds of seas are always easier to take when you could see the enemy.  The other was the direction of the wind and seas.  The winds had veered and were out of the south-southeast.  GRAND ISLE was now a 110’ surfboard.  The ride wasn’t bad when you fell down the face of a wave.  The problem was broaching.  Boats don’t capsize ass over teakettle…they don’t pitch pole.  The roll.  They get broadside to the seas and get pushed over; boats aren’t as stable that way. 

In these seas the waves were traveling faster than we could go.  And as recounted elsewhere in this missive [Author’s note: I will allow I may not have posted that one to the blog yet] fluid dynamics dictated for the rudders to be effective they need water going over them in the direction of the ship.  This was not happening.  Occasionally a wave would catch the stern and push GRAN ISLE either port or starboard and the longer we were in this shit the more difficultly time GI had coming back to course.  Basically we couldn’t steer a course, exactly.

We were far enough away from homeport where we could change course a few degrees and try to duck behind the lee of Cape Ann and anchor.  If we did that it would be at least a day before we could get home - and lose that day of Charlie inport to do needed maintenance.  Or, we could continue to homeport and risk the transit that far north and the vagaries of not steering.  Could be rough.

I talked to the XO and we decided to keep going home. 

When it was time to set sea detail I had the BM1 drive.  He had been a coxswain at Station Gloucester and I felt he had the best chance of making this hell run.

“Hey Boats, how fast are you going?”

“A shade over 25 knots.”

“OK.”

“Hey Boats, any chance you can come left and not aim at the great big, stone break wall?”

“Captain, I’m left full, starboard main is up, clutch on port.  Don’t worry sir, it’ll come over.”

Considering how fast we had to go, how close we were to the break wall…we were both reasonably calm.

You will see a common theme…

We waited.

And waited.

And some more.

It was probably 10, 11 seconds but we proved relativity at that moment.

Then the rudders caught and we came around in time to scream past the sea buoy and once we were inside the harbor Boats brought us down to clutch on both.

“Nice job Boats.”

“Thanks, Cap.”

And that is how you to that.