All Lines Over

I wrote this post on 2 May 2021, and am just now getting to posting it now. I've done that for the last bunch of posts -- my apologies for any confusion with the timeline of things. I think I have one more backlogged post, and then I'll be back to writing in real time.

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And just like that, my last patrol is over. Lines are made up and doubled up, engines are shut down, steering is secured, the brow is over, and shore ties are providing hotel services. I have no surprise left in me that the patrol didn't go like we planned. 

We spent the first ten-ish days working for D5, investigating the foreign fishing fleet operating between the US and Bermudan EEZs about 300 miles offshore. We got them some great imagery which helped them in their discussions with the Regional Fisheries Management Office, and may open discussions with partner nations about licensing and enforcement options. We got a little beat up by the weather after the first few days, and the last few days of that stretch kinda fizzled as another cutter took over lead on the operation. We made it back to homeport for a couple day port call. 

And then we broke. I vaguely remember an issue with one of the generators, but I can't for the life of me remember the specifics right now. We sent a couple crewmembers driving to Baltimore to pick up a part we needed, and lost two days to waiting on parts and making repairs. We were back underway, in the middle of an underway Officer of the Deck (OOD) board for one of the junior officers when we set General Emergency (GE) for flooding in the engine room.

Because, why not? on my last patrol.

One of the break-ins was doing drawings between the mains, and noticed some water that was flowing, but not in sync with how the ship was moving. Looking around, he found where it was flowing out of a pipe, and called a watchstander over. (I love this part of the story that I heard about later when we were back inport). The watchstander put his finger over the leak to keep it from continuing, while he radioed to Main Control for back up. More folks showed up, and by this time the hole in the raw water supply line was about 1". I think this is about when we set GE. I got a phone call (still in the underway OOD board) from EO who was in the engine room (he had left the board about three minutes prior), telling me we had a hole in the raw water supply line to the NR2 MDE, recommend we set GE for main space flooding.

Now, when my EO, with 21 years of engineering experience, 8+ years of sea time, who was a former Chief Damage Controlman tells me we should set GE for flooding, I'm not gonna fuck around! I ran up to the bridge, wondering why they hadn't made the pipe yet...only to find that our 1MC was down. I told the QMOW to start calling berthing areas to get people moving. I took the Conn and then the Deck so the OOD could get down to his billet in the repair locker, and people started arriving on the bridge...including ET1 who quickly got told to go fix the 1MC.

They put in a 3" plug, and the metal was so deteriorated, the hole just got bigger as the plug was jammed in. They got the engine shut down, and secured the valves to the raw water pipe. Even with two valves between the sea chest and the damage, we still had some water leaking through, but nothing like we originally had. The attack team finally got synthoglass installed, and we waited the 30 minutes for it to cure. By this time, other OODs had come to the bridge, and I relinquished the Deck and Conn. We turned around for a down swell ride to give the guys in the engine room a more steady platform. Just happened that this put us in the direction of returning to port for repairs. I don't know that I ever had more than a passing thought that there was another option but to go home and get fixed. I guess we could have stayed underway with the synthoglass repair, and make a permanent repair later...but it just made sense to me that we shouldn't take that risk when the safety offered by a close port was so near. In hindsight, looking at what the pipe looked like when they got it cleaned up, I know I made the right choice.

We got back to homeport before sunset that evening, and it took about four days for the system to get our repairs in place. At that point, we only had about a week left to work for D1, and we made the most of some amazingly calm weather to knock out 21 boardings in two days in the scallop fleet operating about 120 miles east of Cape Cod. The weather turned to crap after that, so we found some safe haven in Long Island Sound to wait out the blow...until we got recalled for SAR the morning of the day it was supposed to get really bad offshore. 

OPS called me at 0500 that morning, "Captain, got some bad news..." It would have been out of character for me not to cuss, and I value predictability as a leader, so yeah, I cussed. One of the fishing vessels in the fleet we had just left broke down, and was being towed back to shore by another fishing vessel, making 2 knots towards port. The on-scene weather was 6-8 foot seas, and building. We were tasked with heading out that way to escort them back to port. About four hours into our 220 mile transit out to them, they reported that the tow had broke, and now the fishing vessel was dead in the water. They reported on scene weather of 18 feet (I'm a little skeptical of that...but then again, I wasn't there...). We picked up the pace to get out to them, as much as we could with a building 10-foot following sea, and got on scene at about 2300. Weren't no way I was attempting a tow at that hour in the 13 foot seas we were seeing -- they were stable, just uncomfortable, so we waited until daybreak the next day to set the Towing Bill. Weather had abated just a smidge to about 10 foot seas, still with winds in the low 30 kts. 

I hadn't slept much that night, both from the crappy ride and from worrying about how the hell we were gonna get the vessel in tow. Having slept in the wardroom to get a marginally better ride, I woke up super early, and reminded myself to stay calm, not rush today of all days, and give people the time they needed to do this massively risky evolution safely without constantly nagging them for updates. We were finally ready to make our approach at about 0930. 

And I'm pretty sure angels sang that morning. It's happened a handful of times throughout my career where the moment is so supremely sublime that there's no other earthly explanation for the coming together so completely of an experience. 

As we approached the fishing vessel, a pod of about six humpbacks started breaching around the boat. One of them stuck their snout straight up out of the water about eight feet, looking around to see what was going on -- just a, "hey guys, whatcha doing?" peek. OPS was driving -- he is a masterful shipdriver (I'm good -- he's on another level of skill entirely). He asked if we wanted to make a practice pass. We decided that if we had a good shot, we should take it. His approach was lovely, very controlled and working with the environmental elements. It was a combo crossing-the-T and 45 approach, with just enough of an angle to use the power of the engines into the wind to control our bow. The fishing boat had their scallop basket on the bottom which was keeping them stern-to, almost quartering the seas, and definitely slowed their rate of drift. Guns (GM1) was a little early with the line-throwing gun, and the first shot got blown within 20 feet of their bow, but didn't make it over. So we came around for another approach.

Which was just as good as the first one, maybe even a tetch closer. My only contribution was at one point telling OPS that his bow was falling off to starboard and we needed to come left a little more to keep the good approach angle. Pretty sure he already saw that because he had the rudder going over before I got all the words out of my mouth. Guns got a great shot this time, sent the shot line up into the fishing boat's mast. The tricky part was definitely holding station while the fishing boat crew hauled around on nearly 1,200 feet of shot line, messengers, and finally got the double-legged bridle up through their bow chocks. We spent most of the time on the bridge marveling at the show the humpbacks were putting on. OPS kept us right there, adjusting as needed when it looked like we were closing up more than was comfortable...but was perfectly timed to help them get all the line over on their deck and the bridle hooked up. We started easing out the line, til we had a 1,000 feet of towline at the rail. Bit was made, and we settled into it. 

Our trackline back to shore was straight into the seas. We were only able to make 2 kts also -- didn't want to risk parting our towline with shockloading it. And so we towed. Their ride looked awful, but at least they were making way again.

The weather continued to settle down ever so slowly throughout the day, and by daybreak the next morning, we were making 4.5 to 5 kts. Which was a damn good thing, because we had only gone about 30 miles overnight from where we picked them up. About 0800 that morning, they radioed over, saying they had gotten their engine started and wanted to break tow. They could make better time under their own power. 

Another super smooth evolution and we were escorting them back to Martha's Vineyard. By Saturday night, we were close enough that another asset could respond if they had any more trouble, and we broke station to head south. We were gonna be late for TSTA one way or another. 

We were supposed to start TSTA at 0800 on Monday. We got ATO onboard by around 1030, so we weren't that far behind, and were back on track with our syllabus by the end of the day. We got some good training out of TSTA, but of course, it didn't go quite as planned. We ended up anchoring a day early, under a safe to sail waiver because we had the $0.30 o-ring onboard to fix the fuel leak on the NR2 SSDG fuel injector pump cylinder, but we didn't have the $15 specialized spline wrench to swap out the o-ring. Oh, and by the time we got to anchorage, we were having problems with the emergency switchboard buss breaker again. Just seemed to make more sense to anchor, get the wrench, fix the SSDG, and then get back to port to do the remaining inport drills so we didn't have to worry about the EDG not being able to automatically take the load if we lost power from the SSDG.

Oops, but we forgot to implement strict water conservation while at anchorage, so we ended up securing sewage Thursday morning just in time for reveille. Smf.

We moored at Base Portsmouth at 0930 on Thursday morning, tucked up into the southern-most inshore berth with an on-the-dock wind. OPS asked me if I wanted to drive in. Of *course* I wanted to drive in!! But that's not my role right now, and the JOs have few opportunities to handle the ship alongside a pier as it is, so SUPPO drove in, and did a great job of it. And there we'll stay until after the Change of Command (barring any early season hurricanes that might cause us to have to sortie...). 

I am joyously relieved to not have the added risk to ship and personnel of being underway. And I am heart-broken and soul-crushed that I won't ever again be a part of a Coast Guard crew sailing off to that unknown horizon, ready to take it all on together.