In Honor of Jonn’s RPS – A Sea Story.
I too have a miserable day to tell about, sans RPS though.
We left Subic for Hong Kong ahead of a REALLY big typhoon. I theory we were to out run the beast, but Murphy was also at sea it seems.
Nothing quite like the feeling one gets when the waves are so high the the bow tries to become a submarine and the whole ship shudders when the screws come out of the water. Imagine a carrier taking white water over the bow… saw it happen from my ship and that was THIS storm!
Ships have a simple little device kinda like a clock pendulum with degrees marked on it in various places aboard. I know I saw 40 plus degrees indicated more than once. I literally was able to walk on the bulkhead a time or two. I know I got rolled out of my bunk on occasion.
Everyone was seasick except for a few. The heads were awash with vomit, any hatch that opened onto a weather deck had an arc of puke slowly being washed away by the waves. The ship stunk!
My misery… I was one of the few not seasick. The galley was closed and all that could be had to eat was saltines and baloney sandwiches for several days.
Category: Geezer Alert!, Navy
For as bad as it gets on a carrier, submarines on the surface are that much worse. Imagine doing a typhoon evasion from Subic when it’s nearly 120 degrees in the engine room, tossing around, shut down to fix a broke piece of gear before we all friggin DIE, and all the maneuvering watchstanders are so fucking hung over and seasick they all have buckets between their knees.
The rolls sucked, but they weren’t anywhere close to 40 degrees. THAT time.
Ah, good times.
One time on the Vinson, we were doing high speed turns, I was walking through the mess decks when they started and had to dive to avoid being taken out by a salad bar the messcranks forgot to secure.
Y’all triggered a few “fond” memories there…
BWAHAAHAAAHAAA
Another day, another good reason I didn’t join the Navy.
What year was that? My uncle was medical officer on a ship during Vietnam. He tells an almost identical story. They’d been supporting operations in Vietnam and were basically going the same speed as the Typhoon. Everyone was seasick and the vomit was flying. Never had that problem on a Bradley.
Any Navy Aircrewman that says he’s never been airsick is lying through his teeth.
Our missions were, at the high end, 14 hours. Most were 10-12. However, over the Atlantic, storms are always present somewhere, and the Soviet sun skippers knew that the best place to hide in their assigned op area was wherever the nearest thunder bumper was.
The problem for sonar is that surface conditions, as well as rain, increase the ambient noise and make it harder to separate the various sound sources. That is especially true the shallower the water becomes.
Our problem was that the P-3 Orion’s wings don’t flex the way an airliner’s do. As a result, you feel EVERY burble, and like a ship at sea, you are moving through 3 dimensions at once.
At my station, my gear was over the port wing, facing outward, which meant I was flying sideways, plus rolling up and down, and then trying to monitor moving displays. Vertigo and motion sickness were common to all of us.
What I learned to do was to carry a tube of saltines in my helmet nag, as well as a bottle of Maalox in one of the lower pockets of my flight suit. It usually helped, but there were some times when you just couldn’t help yourself, and out came the disposable puke bag.
Then it was a few swallows of fresh water and back to work as best you could.
CSC #5: I believe that was Typhoon Irma in May ’66?
Went through several on different ships ca. ’66 – ’69, but I have documentation on that one.
Zero, I sent an email to get more info from my uncle. That’s about the time frame he was there. Might have been the same storm.
I can’t top anyone’s story but I did actually experience mild seasickness once. I was with the Coast Guard PSU assigned to the boat section (25′ center console open boat with a bow 50 and two gunwale mounted 60’s). We were in the Persian Gulf patrolling a security zone around a transport ship at anchor. It was night, cold and blowing close to a gale. Waves were high and our little fishing boats were being tossed like a salad in a prison cell (if that makes sense, you’re a sick person).
I grew up fishing with my dad so I was comfortable in fairly rough seas but some combination of dehydration and other factors make me sick that night.
I have sympathy for anyone who has experienced full bore seasickness. I had it pretty mild. It’s hard to describe, kind of pounding nausea that won’t go away. That was a night of pure misery. I’ve been in worse seas since and was fine but that night it kicked my ass hard.
Hey CavScoutCoastie. Glad to see you dropped that anonymous business. That’s really reserved for the trolls, you know. So, here’s a question for you. A fight breaks out between some coasties and soldiers. It’s an even fight: There are 5 coasties fighting 2 troopers. Do you:
A) Join the coasties;
B) Join the troopers; or
C) Order another beer and watch the fight.
You think THAT’S rough? One time when I was in MI, I had to sleep in a 3 star hotel. OH the HUMANITY!
Was just remembering the time I had to ride in the back of a C-130 without the airline seats…
(OK, it may have been more than once.)
@7 I believe you are correct it was Irma or Nancy but believe Irma
In 66 I was on the Long Beach CGN-9. We were in Manila and supposed to move to Subic when the typhoon hit the ship did a recall and we spent 3 days Puking -Longest 3 days of my life – even the tough old chiefs. We wound up going back on Station in Northern Tonkin gulf off Hyphong Harbor doing PIRAZ and SAR. I was a Signalman and the bridge was like a pendulum. The ship would damn near submerge in the giant waves and all I could think of was a welds or something break on the hull.
Looks like all you Navy guys were in the storm. My uncle writes: “This was the same storm. My ship was the Reeves DLG 24. We were coming into Subic Bay from Japan and ran through the eye of the typhoon. Navy ships are top heavy from guns and radar and rocket launchers etc. It was known that if my ship listed more than 59 degrees it would capsize. It went 53 degrees. In those days weather reporting wasn’t anything like as reliable as it is today. We went east to avoid the storm and ran through the eye of the thing. The worst story I heard was about an LST that was headed from Subic Bay to Viet Nam and got caught in the storm for several days. LSTs and made with no keel so they can run up on a beach, and those things rock and roll like crazy in bad weather. The least motion is about 2/3 rds back and below decks, where the engine room is. As soon as somebody got of watch he headed to the engine room which stunk like shit from sick sailors barfing their guts up on hot pumps etc. The saltiest sailors in the navy lost it there.”
2-17: I’d go with option C and maybe start taking odds on the winner.