Memories

[Clyde A. Phillips]

The link below will take you to a series of videos that brought up some memories of my days at sea.  Some of those are good memories.  Others?

Look at them and see what kind of memories you have.  Enjoy!

 

THERE IS NO "LINK BELOW"  I JUST RE-READ THESE MEMORIES TO REFRESH MY   --UH-- MEMORIES.  THEN I TRIED TO LOOK AT WHAT THE LINK GAVE US (A SERIES OF SHORT CLIPS OF ROUGH, REALLY ROUGH SEA CONDITIONS.  THE OWNER (PATHE) OF THE CLIPS WAS UPSET WHEN THEY FOUND THEM ON THE INTERNET AND FORCED THEIR REMOVAL.

   SORRY ABOUT THAT ! 

 

 

[Eddie Offermann]

That's impressive and unsettling footage!

I can't say I've seen anything that's even close to that - and fairly certain that I'd like to avoid it, if at all possible. ;)

[Clyde A. Phillips]

The section of the film I liked was the Naval vessal (destroyer? I don't know the destroyers since the Fletcher class was retired) coming at us head on and disappearing behind the seas. While captain of the small research vessel (a converted 40 foot Liberty Launch) for Rutgers University I was being followed by a clam boat (80' or so) and he got pictures (wish I had them) of us disappearing behind the seas--and this was on our small bay. There are other shots of that destroyer punching her way into the seas so that the top of the sea maintained its shape until it hit the house. Again, with the same RV in 45 knot winds, we were doing the same thing. Luckily the windshield glass was also a watershield and held up against it. The top of the sea was just about my chin level. Off shore running up the beach about 8 miles off the Jersey coast (NJ, that is, in the USA) in a Newporter, I was off watch and sitting on the starboard seatbox with my back against the doghouse. Looking astern and watching the seas come up on us (we were running downwind) I watched their crests rise up so high that the crests were well above the dinghy hanging in the davits. They looked like they were going to crash right into the cockpit. The seas were running faster than we were and as they caught up to us they raised our stern and slide right under us with no fuss what so ever.

Much fun, and avoiding it would have been expedient, but some things come up on you with no warning. In those days we went where we needed to go, when we had to leave, and we rarely ever had more that a watch and a compass, dividers and parallel rule for navigation and no electronics at all. Wouldn't do that now!  If I had to run a boat up (or down) the beach now and the boat I’d be running had no radio or GPS I’d buy my own and bring them aboard for the trip.  Have other stories, some in a 58 foot RV running offshore, but they will have to wait.

[Eddie Offermann]

I'd love to hear them! :)

[Clyde A. Phillips]

Well, you asked for it, so here’s some more.  First I’ll continue (add to) our punching holes in the seas.  This was an unusual situation that would not have happen had it not been the last day of the season.  We were picking up our oyster spat traps around the bay and as we approached the last one down on the “Cape Shore” we saw another that we couldn’t find the week before.  It was way inshore and in an area that bared out to dry sand bars on low water (and it was high at the time).  The winds where about force 5 when we started in for that station (we would never leave the dock at force 4 but would continue to work in it if it built to that during the day), but it notched up several knots on the way in.  We had to pass the station, round up to it facing the wind and pick it up.  I had my deckhand in the well deck at the bow who did a fantastic job of bringing the equipment aboard.  As we started off the beach (we were closer to it than I really wanted to be) we started making holes in seas.  The boat, being a narrow round bottomed thing, rolled like mad but seemed willing.  There was only one thing that prevented me from steaming head to the sea, which would have eased the roll but maintained some hole punching, and that was my knowledge of the condition of the hull.  Some of her fastenings were original and without their original holding power.  One popped plank and we’d be swimming for shore, for sure.  This started us on a long crawling-off to gain both headway toward home and off shore to deeper water to where the seas would lengthen and ease the conditions.  Now the boat’s ability to roll took over and gave us an interesting ride.  Continuous water was coming over her weather bow, with at least (but not much more than) 45 degrees of roll to both sides of upright.

 

This reminded me of a Newporter trip down the river and back for a first sea trial of a newly completed Pride of someone’s bank account.  This was 'sans-clyde' in that it was before I started at the yard.  Those on board found the day delightful, with a steady wind of 10 or 12 knots—nothing to be concerned about.  The tide was more than half out and the hull was below the grass of the marshes, making for light winds on deck.  Out of the blue came a gust of about 70 knots and broadside to the set of the sheeted-home sails.  Over she went and the men scurried for the sheets, but before they got to them the lee taff rail was in the water.  She came right up with the easing of the sheets and the moderation of the gust and continued her peaceful sail the rest of the way.

 

I’ve been told by those who regularly sail the entire east coast waters that the Delaware Bay has the reputation of the most dangerous on the coast.  Not that it is to be expected to find terrible conditions, but that occasionally the bay has sudden storms of a disastrous nature.  I was up the bay oystering one season with an oysterboat made out of a 50’ Liberty Launch.  My load was so high that I couldn’t see the deck from the wheelhouse and I was concerned that some of the men seemed to have lost interest in their work.  I asked about it and was told that they didn’t have room to work.  On taking a look to confirm such a remark and finding that it was so, I told them to “hang ‘em up,” meaning hang the dredges up, we’re done for the day, and we are heading down bay to plant them.  This always raises the spirits of the men, and down the bay we went.  After planting the load and starting up the bay to tie up for the night we came through the fleet on their way down the bay.  Part of the fleet had experience a half hour blow of more than 80 miles an hour during which three of the fleet were sunk and six men total lost.  These small powerful storms hit maybe three or four times in a working life time, and most often cost us some men.  As was the case this time, the storm usually only hits one reasonably small area.  The oyster beds being worked are about 3 miles wide by about 25 miles long.  I was working within five miles of the ground on which I planted; some of the fleet were about 15 or so miles from their planting area.  Only about a third or less of the beds were affected by the storm.  These storms punctuate the seasons and give us something to talk about for some time.  See, I’m still talking!

Eddie Offermann said:

I'd love to hear them! :)

[Clyde A. Phillips]

At the tail end of my last note is mentioned a 58 foot research vessel and being offshore.  One of our PI’s (Primary Investigators) had some study in mind and convinced the powers that be at the university that we needed a research vessel larger than the little 40 footer.  What we got was a “Florida drifter” (a sport fisherman that ‘drifted’ around as they fished) built by a family boat building business in Florida (whose primary money maker was their drug running from South America).  This boat was trapped by the Feds and given to the University of Georgia and from there transferred to us.  It was my job to go to Skidaway Island, GA, and bring her to New Jersey—a nearly 700 mile, 58 hour trip.  My crew was one of our biologists, an employee of the NJ Division of Shellfisheries and the big boss at the Bayshore Discovery Project (owner of the A. J. Meerwald, New Jersey’s State Tall Ship and Dad’s #1 oysterboat), and the captain for the state’s Division of Shellfisheries’ oyster ground survey boat (another converted 40 foot Liberty Launch).   The trip started at daybreak so we could find our way (unknown to us) to the ocean and then up the beach to the Delaware Bay.  The first several hours were used to try to figure our fuel usage to see if we could make it to NJ on the fuel we had.  Our early figures showed that we had a real money maker here, the fuel tank was filling!  We had 1500 gallons of fuel in the two forward tanks and an unknown amount in the after two tanks.  It seems she was running off the after tanks and returning the unused fuel to the forward tanks, causing us to think the engine was making fuel.  We finally figured out all the valves in the fuel line network and stopped getting rich.  The first day was beautiful; three to four foot seas, no more than 6 knots of wind, scattered clouds and unlimited visibility.  We set up our watches that had one at the wheel and one as a second set of eyes while the other two slept.  That worked well the first night.  We did confirm our hope that we had plenty of fuel to make it all the way so we decided not to go up the Chesapeake Bay.  The bay route would be necessary if we would need to stop for fuel for the 12V71 Jimmy to drink. 

 

The second day brought on worsening conditions with the wind steadily building to about 20 knots by nightfall.  Not too bad and sleep was possible because the berths were big enough to roll around in.  Next morning and day were quite windy but livable and the visibility remained good.  Bob (the biologist) and I were enjoying good birding; me getting many life sightings among the shearwaters and large petrels that seemed abundant.  One other flying critter was really interesting.  They were no stranger on my list of sightings, but I never had a real chance to study them.  There were so many flying fish that we had them in the air around us almost all day.  I always thought that they flew by going full tilt underwater and got into the air by momentum and glided straight ahead to a watery touchdown as their momentum died.  It was interesting to see them change direction in the air at will.  As they slowed down and settled toward the water they would submerge the lower half of their tail fin (which is much longer than the upper part) and wiggle their tail a few quick strokes and become airborne again--actually flying where they wanted to go.  Later in the day one of them showed me something that I never thought possible.  He launched himself into the air on a collusion coarse with the boat with enough altitude to hit the water within a couple of feet from our side.  Apparently that was not to his liking so, still in the air, about a foot from the water, he put his tail in gear, revved it up, gained altitude and changed course about 90 degrees and flew away to a safe return to the water.  All they now need is the ability to extract oxygen from the air and they will be flying through our cities.  I have added a picture in the picture files showing a flying fish with his tail in gear.  Bottle nosed dolphins were also abundant and we even saw a few spotted dolphins, the first either of us have seen in the wild.

 

The next night brought us some patches of hard rain.  Radar got us around some of that.  But with the rain came the wind, and with the wind came the seas, and with the seas came my first and only attempt at zero gravity sleeping.  The survey boat captain was at the wheel, his then fellow employee of Shellfisheries was his other eyes, Bob wasn’t a sleeper so he was also up in the wheel house.  I was sleeping soundly down below when the first sign of different conditions appeared.  It was like an explosion!  The sea lifted to boat skyward and then just dropped it.  I was pushed back down into the berth by the deck above.  Yes, I woke up!  Then I tried to sit on the edge of the berth and get my pants on, which I did by the end of the second short flight.  Two or three more flights got me up to the wheel house so I could ask what was happening.  I know that my ways of doing things are not the way others may do them, and that’s alright with me, but as the ‘captain’ explained what was happening I found out that (in my line of thinking) he’s not the captain I thought he was.  In order to get things better he was taking a hundred rpm off the engine at a time to see how things were.  Me?  I’d pull the throttle back to somewhat above idle and let her settle in that speed and then increase it a hundred at a time until we were going too fast and then back it off a hundred.  But what do I know.  I know that he went below for a little sleep, and that was not his idea!!

 

You can tell we survived the night.  Otherwise you wouldn’t know flying fish actually fly.  By morning the rains had cleared away and we had a beautiful cruise up the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula and right into the mouth of the Delaware Bay.  Still a lot of wind and spray, but the flying off the tops of the waves had stopped and we were now back to driving through the water.  The bay was being hit by force six winds but those on the bay had more than that earlier.  We found out when we finally tied up at our dock that several sport fishermen were lost and a few boats sunk during the storm as it crossed the bay.  Most of them were from Delaware, which is not surprising because that side of the bay has the strongest flood tides, and the wind was right against the tide, building higher and steeper seas.  Sport fishing can also be dangerous too, but I’m not a fin fisherman—I stay away from dangerous things.

[Eddie Offermann]

I'm loving these. :)

I sat and read the last one to my girlfriend who is thrilled mostly by two things: my nerdy ways (as a software developer and visual effects professional), and my sailing ways. The fact that I didn't manage to comment to the last one might be an indication of how she responded. ;)

Clyde - I've noticed that days or weeks at sea rarely result in boring stories. I hope we get to sit down face to face at some point and talk about a few. In the mean time, don't hesitate to keep sharing.