Underway OOD Board

We had our first underway OOD qualification board for our first year Ensigns
this afternoon. ENS LR (aka, ANAV = Assistant Navigator) did a fabulous job.
Though not necessary, she quoted COLREGs ("Rules of the Road" for making
sure ships don't collide out at sea) nearly verbatim. She rattled off all
six movements of a ship. She laid down a mo-board (maneuvering board = a
plot of vectors to show how ships are moving in relation to each other)
while we peppered her with watch situations and questions. 

Qual boards are a rite of passage in the Coast Guard. Experienced
watchstanders grill the boardee with questions with a couple of purposes in
mind: first, to test the bounds of the boardee's knowledge. The standard
line is that the qualification earned is the minimum knowledge required to
safely stand the watch. Newly qualified individuals are exhorted to keep
learning their craft and increase their proficiency in all aspects of the
details. They start with the basics, and gain the nuances through hours upon
days upon weeks upon months upon years of experience of actually standing
the watch. 

Second, qual boards test the boardee's judgment. One of my favorite
questions is "would you rather be the give way or the stand on vessel? And
why?" I know what my answer is, and by the way the boardee answers, I gain
insights into how they think about driving the ship, maneuvering with other
vessels, and making decisions. I find out how they perceive the stated
priorities. 

Third, qual boards create stress in the boardee in a safe environment.
Boards are stressful, there's no doubt about it. You're sitting in front of
four to six people that have, collectively for ANAV today, nearly 32 (!!)
years of sea time, that know their shit, have seen and survived scenarios
you could never even dream of, are asking you difficult, technical and
nuanced questions and are listening closely to your questions, judging
everything you say. But it's safe. You can say stupid stuff in a board, and
not steam the ship into a hazardous situation. Unlike on the bridge on watch
where if, in a stressful situation, you say something stupid, you could run
the ship aground, hit another vessel or put your shipmates' lives at risk.
Some people freeze, some people babble, some people mumble, and some people
fake it. But stress is inevitable on watch. How the boardee deals with it is
something incredibly important for the CO to know.

If you're sitting for a board, you've already completed the Personnel
Qualification Standard (PQS, pronounced pee-que-ess) package, stood numerous
and varied watches, had a pre-board where the second year junior officers
put on a mock/trial board to give some sense of what a real board will be
like, and stood part of a busy watch with OPS so he can evaluate your actual
performance on watch. Do folks sometimes choke at the real board even after
all that? Sure. It happens. But they go back, stand a few more watches
maybe, study a bunch more, make more reports to the CO, whatever it is they
need to work on before going back in front of the board. Everyone sleeps
better at night when they're confident in the watchstanders' ability.

This qualification is a **huge** one for JOs. It is typically their first
major qual they earn after commissioning. For officers that pursue an afloat
career, it is the first of hopefully many OOD quals, one for each ship on
which they sail. I still have my first qual letter. And my second. And my
third. And my fourth. (I didn't give myself a qual letter on the two ships I
was CO on :)) While each one is only a piece of paper, they represent
success at a major effort to learn a new language, master technical and
unique skills, and understand the ship as a sum greater than its component
parts. 

CO read a brief snippet from The Caine Mutiny soon after he congratulated
ANAV on earning her qualification this afternoon: 

"On this day Willie took a mighty leap upward in life. He stood the
noon-to-four watch as officer of the deck. Keefer was present to correct any
disastrous mistake, and Captain Quegg himself perched in his chair
throughout the watch, alternately dozing or blinking placidly in the
sunshine. Willie conducted a faultless watch. It was a simple matter of
staying on station in the screen while the convoy zigzagged. Whatever his
inner shakiness, he kept a bold front, and maneuvered the ship firmly. When
the watch was over he penciled in the log:
 12 to 4--Steaming as before.
   Willis Seward Keith
   Ensign, USNR
He had signed many logs for port watches, but this was different. He put an
extra flourish to his signature, and thrilled as though he were entering his
name in a historic document." (p 239-240, The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk,
Little, Brown and Company paperback version)

"Whatever his inner shakiness, he kept a bold front, and maneuvered the ship
firmly." Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And that confidence earned today
with her first qual will be solidified and burnished through the crucible of
watches yet to come. 

Congrats, ANAV!

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Where Did My Day Go?

Last time I really knew what time it was today was around lunch. After that,
I have no idea what happened to the day.

Well, that's not entirely true. I can list where my time went -- I stood
some watch on the bridge while there was training for most everyone else on
the messdeck; I lost a couple hours after that at my computer until dinner;
I ate dinner (beef goulash was delicious); and then lost a couple more hours
at my computer, the nightly OPS brief, and waaay too much time at Evening
Reports that morphed into an Awards Board meeting. And now, all of a sudden,
it's 8:30 pm, and I'm just getting the POD for tomorrow published. 

I don't think I got done what I meant to do today. I meant to work on LTJG
Department Head OERs. What I actually did was send emails and plan the
Evening Reports/Awards Board meeting. Which I suppose is useful and
productive in its own way. But those dang OERs aren't going to write
themselves. I know, I know, I still have nine days until they're due to the
CO, but I'm easily distracted. Before I know it, those nine days will have
shrunk to three and I'll be in a panic. Maybe not a panic, but I'll be a lot
more stressed about finishing them up. 

Ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

The Derelict Dinghy and Other Sunday SAR Adventures

We piped boat lowering detail for the CB-OTH (Cutter Boat-Over the Horizon) 
this morning at 0800, right on time per the POD, for an early Sunday personnel 
transfer from shore. As the boat deck was getting ready, a lookout spotted a 
white cap that wasn't crumbling away like the others after a few moments. 
Breaking out the binoculars, I saw it was a small white dinghy bobbing along 
in the waves.

A small white dinghy floating along with no one in it doesn't sound like such 
a serious thing, but to us in the Coast Guard, we tend to think that maybe 
there was someone supposed to be on that dinghy that is now in the water with 
no one the wiser. A report like that starts the whole SAR (search and rescue) 
machine a-churnin'.

We got the OTH in the water, and the coxswain and crew went over to 
investigate. The dinghy only had one oar, some Coke bottles floating in the 
few inches of water onboard, and a good bit of algal growth poxed all over. 
The crew read off the HIN (hull identification number, like the VIN on a car), 
and we passed the information to our local Sector. And then the OTH went on 
their merry way to make the personnel transfer happen. DILIGENCE stayed on 
scene with the dinghy.

After a few moments, we heard "PAN PAN, PAN PAN, PAN PAN..." (pronounced 
pahn-pahn) over the radio, with Sector passing all the details on VHF-FM 16 
about the vessel's description (6 foot, white dinghy) and location (so many 
miles off mumble mumble mumble), requesting assistance from any mariners in 
the area. We stayed on scene with the dinghy, while we waited for our small 
boat to get back with our passengers. In the meantime, we saw a Coast Guard 
Auxiliary flight overhead, conducting a VS (victor sierra, sector search with 
a single unit) search looking for anyone that might have fallen overboard from 
the dinghy.

Sector used the HIN we gave them to figure out who the owner of the dinghy 
was. They called and made sure he was ok -- he was. Then we towed the dinghy 
back to the local Station with our CB-L (Cutter Boat-Large). Or really, the 
cox'n and crew of the CB-L tipped all the water out of the dinghy, and then 
hauled it onboard the CB-L, strapped it down to the deck and went on their 
merry way. Maybe not standard, but took a heck of a lot less time than towing 
the thing.

On the way back from returning the dinghy to shore, the CB-L was diverted to 
go search for a vessel whose EPIRB (electronic positioning indicating radio 
beacon) went off. They looked around in the position given off by the EPIRB, 
but didn't see anything -- no debris field, no foundering vessel. Sector used 
the registration information on the EPRIB to contact the vessel's owner to 
make sure they weren't in distress.

The Coast Guard takes safety of life at sea (SOLAS) stuff seriously. Please, 
folks, make sure you have your safety gear, it's in good working, and you know 
how to use it when you go boating. Make sure your EPIRB is properly 
registered. File a float plan. Not all cases turn out as easily and happily as 
our couple of SAR cases this morning.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Good Enough

This is one of those days when I can't think of anything that's worth
writing about. It's been a decent day. Sunrise yoga, field day, material
inspection, quarters, burgers for lunch, a lazy afternoon with a little bit
of watch thrown in while the JOs had their Town Hall with the CO and Command
Chief, dinner, rendezvous with a patrol boat to transfer migrants, evening
reports, and a quiet evening (hopefully). Yup, that sums up the day. No big
thoughts, no great insights. No huge successes or massive failures. 

I'll call today good enough.

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

It's Been Slow

It's been slow here recently, which was fairly easily explained by the poor
weather up until Wednesday morning sometime when the wind eased off its
howling. But the weather has been good for a few days now -- or at least not
bad. Maybe the wind is out of the wrong direction? I don't know. We've been
speculating about why things are quiet. 

And quiet is not bad, not by a long stretch. It's just odd. We've been
keeping busy with lots of boat training and drills. 1 January starts a new
quarter, new semi-annual period, and a new annual period. All our drill and
certification calendars reset at the start of the new year, so we have a lot
of drills to get through. So the quiet time is coming in handy. 

It is a little unsettling, though, to plan a full day's worth of training
and know there's a dang good chance that we won't get to do any of it if we
get busy with operations -- because operations always come first. I know
when I was OPS, my XO and I had a running joke about how many times and how
thoroughly I blew up his POD. It's not so funny any more...

We're also getting through Town Hall meetings with the CO, Command Chief and
the various paygrades. I'm usually a tad nervous putting these on the POD
because a) I know they're really important, b) they usually take at least an
hour, and often times a lot longer, and c) they're really important. The
Town Halls are a chance for the crew to speak directly with the CO about
what's on their minds. They bring up great ideas for improvements, concerns
we as the command haven't thought about, and vents we haven't heard before.
They also offer the CO and Command Chief the opportunity to explain things
on a more individual level to the folks who are actually doing the work.
That's why they're really important.

So all in all, I'll take the slow days, even if I don't understand why we're
having them. OPS can blow up my POD tomorrow. Or better yet, the next day...

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Wednesday Underway

We pitched around a good deal last night, looking for an upswell - downswell 
ride. It wasn't too bad for me, but I have a sense that some of the guys up in 
Deck berthing may have caught a split second or two of air on some of the 
swells.

My alarm went off at 0615. I called the bridge to ask about relative winds, 
temperature and true winds. Relative winds were 240 at 18 knots which seemed a 
little high for Sunrise yoga, but the temperature of 77 degrees convinced me I 
didn't have any good excuse to be lazy. Once I figured out from the comparison 
of true wind to relative wind that we were going downswell, I committed to 
getting out on my mat. BM3 JR joined me for about 30 minutes of peaceful 
stretching as the sun struggled to shine through the clouds. We got sprinkled 
on somewhere about the third sun salutation. There's some irony there...

After breakfast and a French press full of decaf coffee, I trundled up to my 
stateroom to work for a bit while the Engineers conducted BECCEs (Basic 
Engineering Casualty Control Exercises). I got some good thought work done, 
planning meetings and events for the weeks ahead before it was time to go to 
the Integrated Training Team (ITT) brief.

At the ITT brief, EO, OPS and I ran through our plan for a drill that 
incorporated multiple training teams. The Navigation and Seamanship Training 
Team (NSTT) ran a man overboard, shipboard pick-up drill. About one minute 
after Oscar (our simulated man overboard) went over the rail, the Engineering 
Training Team (ETT) simulated a loud metallic noise in the port side (NR2) 
reduction gear, which means the Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOW) had to 
ask the Officer of the Deck (OOD) permission to shut down the NR2 main diesel 
engine (MDE) so there wouldn't be catastrophic damage to the reduction gear. 
The Conning Officer then had to drive to approach the man in the water (still 
Oscar) on one engine. ENS LR had the Conn and did a great job with the 
challenging approach -- but I'm getting ahead of myself...we're still just 
briefing the drill. Once Oscar was recovered, the Medical Training Team 
(MTT -- not sure why it's a Team because MTT is really only our corpsman, HS2 
TW) simulated that the individual who fell overboard (a real person now, not 
just Oscar) had suffered a compound fracture to his leg when he fell.

Whew -- it sounds like a lot. But our Training Teams are pretty good at this 
stuff, and once the briefings were all over, we moved into our respective 
positions, conducted safety walk-throughs and waited for the Training 
Environment pipe.

The drill went super smoothly. Seriously, ENS LR handled the ship like a 
seasoned pro, even with one engine, picked up Oscar, and then three life rings 
that crewmembers had thrown over so "Oscar" could grab one while he waited for 
us to pick him up with the ship. The guys on deck got some handy line handling 
training in, the engineers got some good casualty response training, the 
bridge team got some ship handling and emergency response training, and BDS 
(Battle Dressing Station) personnel got some good first responder training. 
"Secure from drill, stow all gear."

And it was time for the Training Team debriefs, and then the ITT debrief. We 
passed all three drills. And **finally** it was time for lunch!

I had some more quiet time after lunch while there was departmental and 
divisional work going on about the ship. CO and our Command Chief held a 
non-rated personnel town hall meeting to get the opinions and pulse of our 
junior enlisted members. I worked on some JO OERs until my eyes felt like they 
were going to pop out of my head. At that point, I went up to the bridge to 
stare at the horizon for a few minutes, and ended up talking to some of the 
watchstanders up there about various career progression issues.

In the meantime, OPS was working out plans to transfer a handful of migrants 
to another ship for potential repatriation. We met up with the other vessel 
who was doing small boat training, and used their small boat to transfer the 
people and their stuff over to the other ship. All done, well before dinner 
time. We're getting so we can be manned and ready for receiving or 
transferring off migrants in about 10 or 15 minutes. Not bad considering we 
hadn't done any significant migrant ops for more than two years before this 
patrol.

A little more computer work after the migrants were all transferred, and then 
dinner. Conversation around the dinner table was fun as usual. Gentle joshing 
about each others' foibles. And laughing about having to soften the butter 
pats in our pockets before being able to spread them on the rolls. And great 
delight about the strawberry-banana milkshakes on the messdeck, especially the 
pipe announcing them.

Then it was off to prep for evening reports and getting the plan of the day 
(POD) templated out before the OPS Brief. We had a new style of OPS brief --  
OS3 JS got fancy with his weather slides -- very impressive. And he even put a 
couple cartoon jokes on the last slide, which was a nice touch. Then Evening 
Reports, to make sure we're all still onboard, plan the day tomorrow, wrangle 
a bunch of details, and laugh some more. I left fairly early to get the POD 
published.

And now it's 9 pm, and I think I'm gonna read my book for a while. Just 
another day underway...

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
**UNDERWAY**

Big Thoughts Continued

Going back to a post from a couple weeks ago...


I suspect the NE quadrant (good mission/good admin) is a combination of 
training and proficiency, hard work, attention to detail, high standards, and 
a good dose of luck. The SW quadrant (poor mission/poor admin) is laziness and 
lack of luck. The SE quadrant (good mission/poor admin) is pure  damn good 
luck with a small dose of proficiency mixed in. The NW quadrant (poor 
mission/good
admin) is where the heart of my quandary lies.

There's more to mission effectiveness than just being good at knowing the 
policy, being good technically with the tools, paying attention to the details 
and good comms/teamwork. Luck does play a huge part in finding the go-fast, or 
seeing the PIW (pee-eye-double you = person in the water). If you think you 
have all the things in the first list, but never actually have to put it into 
action during a real case, how do you know if you're just good at training in 
scenarios or can actually do it for realsies?

And maybe "luck" isn't the right word. It's more of being in the right place 
at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time -- because our 
operations are mostly about responding to people in crises. We are in the 
business of disaster response, whether it's traditional search and rescue or 
natural or manmade disaster response. The explosion of Deepwater Horizon, 
Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami in 
Indonesia -- the Coast Guard is in the right place at a time when things are 
going extremely badly for everyone else. So I'm not sure I should call that 
good luck.

I think it's more luck in the sense of exposure to opportunity. You can't 
catch a drug running go-fast if there are none in the water within 500 miles 
of you. A particular, individual unit can't respond to a natural disaster if 
they're in drydock when the event happens. And so timing, and patrol 
schedules, and being in the right spot when something goes badly -- that's how 
units get involved in big cases. And if there are no big cases to respond to, 
how do we know if we know what we're doing? Because our admin is good?

Inspections, assessments and training team certifications can only tell you so 
much. No matter how good our training teams are, the training environment 
still relies very heavily on simulations. If real world experience weren't 
important, why would we still require boarding officers and boarding team 
members to get exposed to pepper spray before they're allowed to carry it?

I don't doubt that our crew is one of the best there is out there in the 
fleet. We communicate well; we know our tactics, techniques and procedures; 
we're proficient at working as a team; we know our jobs, trust our shipmates 
and take care of our equipment. Is there karmic backlash in hoping we get the 
opportunity to show it, when that means someone else has an insanely bad day?

LCDR Charlotte Mundy
Executive Officer
USCGC DILIGENCE (WMEC 616)
** UNDERWAY**