In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 5

The rest of the crew was support staff that I didn’t often interact with. The Yeoman I had already met. The Deck Division were the guys who had not scored good enough on the entrance test and came to the Boat right after Sub School. They had a tough life, mostly chipping paint and applying new paint (while in port). The cooks were ok for the most part.

I always hear people say “The food on Subs is great”, well, no it is not. Maybe in the Ward Room (the Officer’s palace), but not out on the Mess Deck. I will say they did the best they could, most of the time. The Interior Communications (ICs) guys were very cool and I immediately got along with them, which turned out to be a very good thing (I will explain later). The Machinist Mates (MMSs) were indifferent and Red was the “character” of the bunch. I won him over like I did the unfriendly Torpedomen, but he was a person like none other I had ever met. I thought he belonged in the movies, because he was bigger than life. He was wild and crazy and smart and a little scary. His blond hair and wild blue eyes were hard to overlook. When you talked to him, he always paused and looked at you, before he would answer and you would be wondering if he was going to just answer, or kill you.

My first trip out of the river came a few weeks later. We had a “Dependents Cruise” to do. This is a quick trip out to sea where you load the Boat up with all of the wives, girlfriends and family that cared to come. I had no family along on this trip, or ever. It was kind of cool to have a bunch of civilians on board, though. I remember looking at some of the women and wondering, “What is he doing with a girl like that? (or vice versa). It was interesting to watch the officers get VERY pushy with their families around. You wanted to smack them up side the head more than usual.

We brought the civvies in through the Weapon Shipping hatch, as it had the shortest ladder to get up and down, about 8 feet. We always stationed people topside and below to assist. It was always needed.

The Boat undocked, which is an interesting procedure to watch. The first thing you have to do is get a line over to the Tug Boat so they can latch onto the Boat. This is started with a device known as a “Heavie”. A heavie is just a rock (I think it’s a rock?) tied up securely with a light rope and that hangs off a long length of the same light rope, about 3/8” around. The idea was, you twirled the heavy weight around (almost like a Cowboy’s Lasso) and once you had it spinning fast enough, send it in the direction of the target (the Tug in this case). The trick to the Heavie is letting the rope you have curled up on your arm go out so it doesn’t slow down the weight. Once you got that line over, you would tie your end off to one of the Bull Nose’s on the Boat and the guys on the Tug would pull tie a heavy metal cable to the line you tossed over. Then we would haul the cable over to our Boat and secure it to one of the Boat’s Bull Noses. There are multiple bow and stern lines that you have to undo once the Tug is firmly attached (or as it is hooking up).

Once the Tug is secure and the regular lines are free, the Tug takes over and guides you down the river to the Long Island Sound and then departs. We sailed past Fishers Island and into the Block Island Sound. Once we got out there into deep enough water, we submerged to Periscope depth. I had never seen the ballast tanks flooded, so that was cool to see. A huge plume of water vapor shoots up as the air is vented from the tanks both forward and aft. Once the Boat goes under, they close the control valves and stop the sinking. I was under water for the first time on the Boat and had that first feeling of helplessness creep over me.

Now the fun starts. A line of civilians forms in the Control Room so everyone can take a turn looking through the periscope (scope for short). A lot of the equipment in the Control Room was covered up because it’s “super fucking classified” (look it up). I was busy tracking contacts near and far, trying to make sure we don’t get hit by anyone, or do the hitting. One of the other FTs was on the second older scope keeping a watch and barking contacts out. Once every booger eating kid and wife/girlfriend had their turn looking at water and sailboats, we surfaced, which is pretty cool too.

To surface, you blow high pressure air into the ballast tanks, which forces the water out the bottom; and the Boat gets lighter. So we surfaced and headed back to meet the Tugboat. Tying off to a Tug out to sea is harder, because they don’t get too close, so it’s a much farther throw with the Heavie. We did it and made it back to port unscathed. This was one of the few times I had nothing to do and put on a Life Vest and got to go topside while we were actually underway. The view on that sunny day as we passed under the railroad and New London Bridge was spectacular.