the north atlantic in april

[snowstorm]

my son in law left this morning along with his boss to deliver a yacht they built. left rockland me bound for new york city. looking at the weather report.winds to 35kts seas 7to11ft. could be an interesting ride. he says it should take about 22hrs. may be a bit longer this trip. once they get south of boothbay if the weather isnt too bad they go thru the gulf of maine heading for cape cod. 60miles or so offshore. i was on the boat for sea trials 2 weeks ago, nice boat a little out of my price range. its a 47' power cat. was built for a golf resort in new york . .........the kid didnt even ask me if i wanted to go

[submarinesailor]

Been there, done that. 

Was on a submarine that transited on the surface from Newport News to New London, CT. in the December/January time frame.  The North Atlantic in the winter time WAS NOT FUN!!!!!!   Never been so sea sick in my life.   Did I tell you that they have a very round bottom and roll VERY EASILY.  Not fun.   40' waves going over the sail, trying to drown the OD and look outs.

To make things even worst, we had a bunch of extra crew members on-board along with about 50 extra shipyard workers.  AND EVERYONE was seasick.  Man was it crowded - no, it was full!!!!!  Did I tell you it wasn't fun?  I was never so happy in my life to slide under the water then we got to the test area off New London.

Bruce

[Ianab]

Could be worse.

Could have to deliver it to NZ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1Ld820uNg

Ian

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

Could have been in an old Oceangoing Mine Sweep (MSO), coming from the northerneastern coast of Maine, in February. Running to Boston in a northeaster, taking green water OVER the flying bridge. Taking 53* rolls for several hours. Two days transit with so many badly seasick that we were on watch eight hours and then off for four hours. Got to Boston and had 12" of sea ice on all the lines and stancheons topside, took twelve hours to de-ice and that including using jet heaters and plenty of shipyard workers helping...

That's the same run that I fell 10' UP a ladder when the ship hit a trough in the waves just as I was going up the ladder...

Fun and games. Never so glad to see dry land in all my life.

Herb (EMC(SW) USN Ret)

[sawguy21]

I love boats, have been in some rough water on inland lakes that near gave me religion, but most definitely don't need THAT.

[sandhills]

A close neighbor has told me of his trip back from the Korean war on a ship, I don't remember the size but he said for every one person that should have been on the boat there were at least three.  They had rough seas for nearly all of the 2 weeks it took them to get home and they all were very sick, he hasn't and won't get on another boat to this day.

[snowstorm]

Could be worse.

Could have to deliver it to NZ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk1Ld820uNg

Ian

another boat builder just down the road from where my sil works just sent a boat over your way. a wooden lobster yacht. if you look up johns bay boat co should be pictures. it either went to nz or austrailar. that one went over on a ship. i have seen some of the boats he builds they are really nice. all cedar on oak

[Ianab]

another boat builder just down the road from where my sil works just sent a boat over your way. a wooden lobster yacht. if you look up johns bay boat co should be pictures. it either went to nz or austrailar. that one went over on a ship. i have seen some of the boats he builds they are really nice. all cedar on oak

I can imagine one of those boats would be ideal around Northland / Bay of Islands or Marlborough Sounds area. Sea worthy enough for to be out in any sensible weather at least.

Ian

[Al_Smith]

We were off the Grand Banks in Jan at 300 feet taking 15 degree rolls on the Tinosa .One of the many fast attacks I rode .

Playing "hide and seek " with a P3 Orion off the coast of Greenland on the Seadevil at periscope depth in 20 foot seas .Those crazy maniacs had that danged plane right down in the trough and everybody thought we U-boat jockeys were crazy .

You see those shows about fishing the north Atlantic and think it's rough .Try it some time,it's the truth .

[clww]

That's one more reason I liked riding the aircraft carriers! :D

[Al_Smith]

Motion sickness you either have or you don't .I was never bothered  with  it myself .

Many were though ,even those old salts with 15 years of sea duty under their belts .

What I found odd being a sub sailor is how smelly the air is on the coast .After 60-70 days on patrol submerged breathing basically "pure" air you become aclimitized to no smell or at least the normal scents of the ocean .

My wife of the time however thought I was a might bit smelly . :D Never really noticed myself .

[ouachita]

In 1963 we were headed back to Charleston from Holy Loch, Scotland  on the USS Alcor (AK259).  Navy weather said we had 3 choices....all bad.  We ended up taking the high route. The Alcor was a 508' long converted Liberty hull carrying missles in 2 holes and stores in the other three and we were coming back empty and riding high.

We hit a big North Atlantic storm about half way across the Atlantic.  I was on the bridge several watches and saw waves from trough to crest were 100 ft.  It's blumb scary to look up at see a crest 50 ft higher than you are when you are 50 ft from the plimsoll line.

We took massive hits to the bow and forward of the house.  When we finally arrived in Charleston, yard welders worked two weeks 24/7 welding the ribs back to main deck and fo'c'sle.

Herb, NASA spent a lot of money on a plane that would give guys 30 seconds of weightlessness.  All they had to do was put them on a small MSO in the North Atlantic.  Flip side of that was hanging on to the ladder for dear life going up.


Charles Westmoreland CF, RF
USNR vet, SK2

Ivan, Arkansas and Conroe, Texas.

[Magicman]

It was exciting just reading that and trying to imagine how rough it must have been.  My imagination can't get that far.  Thanks for sharing.

[snowstorm]

sil isnt back yet. i am sure he will have plenty of tales to tell of the trip. they had planed on two days to get to nyc then sea trials with the new owner and coast guard inspection. the boat is going to be a ferry for a golf resort

[Al_Smith]

I'm certain every ocean in the world at a certain time can be rough .Depends on the weather at the time .

During my short naval tour of duty and due to the fact I served on fast attack nuke boats I was in a majority of the major oceans of the world .Of those from my perspective the North Atlantic at certain times can be the roughest .

It would be interesting to know the amount of liberty ships that were lost  due to bad seas as opposed to German U-boats during WW2 .If I were a betting man I'd about say it would be a toss not knowing the exact count .

[pineywoods]

I crossed the north atlantic twice on a troop ship, both converted liberty cargo vessels. East bound in January, rough ride. west bound in May 2 years later, nice trip...

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

...
Herb, NASA spent a lot of money on a plane that would give guys 30 seconds of weightlessness.  All they had to do was put them on a small MSO in the North Atlantic.  Flip side of that was hanging on to the ladder for dear life going up.

Charles,

Yes, the trip up the ladder (pun intended) was thrilling if brief. On the other hand those two days were the longest week of my life. I spent four hours on in the forward engine room, switchboard watch, then went up and relieved the watch on the lee helm in the pilot house for four hours. Then woke the guy up I had relieved (he was sleeping on the deck in front of the helm) so he could go down to the FER to relieve the guy there who came up to relieve me so I could get four hours shut eye before starting all over again. Lived on stale ham sandwiches and bug juice brought to our watch stations by the only mess cook still well enough to get about. Over half the crew was so seasick that the corpsman had to restrain them by strapping them in their racks. He had it rough too, since he had to monitor them the whole time...

Glad I was young and tuff then, don't think I could handle it now but we got though it ok then.

By the way, while we were taking those 53* rolls, the pointer on the inclinometer was getting real close to the red line that was marked the roll limit at 54*...

Yep, MSO were something else. 170' of wooden hull, round bottom *&$!!*. They'd take a ten degree roll just sitting along side the pier if one of Al's Fast Attack boats came by in the channel at Charleston. You could always tell when it happend, even though it was usually late at night...

Thank you for your service to our country.

Herb

[Al_Smith]

 :D Ha sea stories all start out with "now this is no BS" .

Well so it is .On one deployment in real   roller state 4 seas the XO made a big speech over the 1 MC to prepair for rough seas .Idiotic stuff running at perescope depth for some unknown reason like we were a WW2 diesel or something . :

We had everything lashed down tighter than a bulls butt in fly time .The XO's state room came apart like a dollar watch .Needless to say the crew was rather amused . 8)

[ouachita]

Herb,
Two of my best friends on the beach were at the degaussing station.

When in port, we were tied up at Pier Alpha.  That was right beside the Officer's Club with the hot babes at the swimming pool...

The Coast Guard in their little patrol boats would putt putt by the Naval Station but would crank it up once they got even with us as they had nothing past us except WESVACO until they got to the NWA .  We still got the bow wake.

Charles

[Clam77]

The flat bottom boats weren't any better than the round ones - I was on the USS Nashville (LPD-13).. unless we were loaded down with about 1000 marines and all their equipment, any amount of wave and it was felt.   :D

I think our roll limit was 35° but i know we went past that several times in the atlantic during a hurricane or two and a few bad storms.  Lucky the boat crane and/or superstructure was still there a time or two as I believe the crane was designed to FALL off at the roll limit.

Coming out of the forward/aft engineroom 4 decks down was a workout though on a rise- made your body feel 5x heavier than you really were.


Andy
MM2(SW), USN

[chain]

We went across the North Atlantic in September in early sixites to join a armored cavalry unit in West Germany. Had a buddy get sea-sick walking up the gangplank; we put him in his sack and brought him crackers and water for nearly a week, the only time he would get up was to use the head...puking all the way.

I use to smoke,  lit up on the deck of the ship in the sea air and just couldn't smoke at all. Remember a fishing skiff cutting across our ship's bow, the skiff supposedly from Newfoundland, a near collision, and a British scout four-enigine job buzzing us one foggy morning. Foggy and cold every day, one whale seen spouting.

[snowstorm]

sil got back wed. nite. said it was an interesting trip.after pushing thru 10ft seas all day sat they pulled in to sandwitch mass for the nite. sunday it was thru the cape cod canal. isle of shoals then long island there the seas werent nearly as high. then into nyc. the golf club that had this boat built is on ellis island. membership fee only 250k +25k in greens fees per year

[snowstorm]

next to ellis island

[sandhills]

Huh, can't imagine why we all don't play there.