"Richard Casady" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:49:32 -0500, "mmc" wrote:

Shipping containers have very hard corners.

I hear they lose about 10 000 containers a year. A goodly percentage
probably in the North Pacific. All that Walmart junk.

Casady
That's scary! Makes the conditions those PNW fishermen work under even
tougher.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
(Richard Casady) wrote in
:

They have built 150 footers with 2 1/2 wood hull
planking. Minesweepers. John Wayne owned one.



My last Navy duty station was Mine Force Support Group, Atlantic, back in
'69-'71. I got Shanghai'd a few times to solve this or that electronic
problem aboard them and taken to sea because I couldn't jump that far to
the dock.

NOTHING rolls like an MSO.....(c;]

It's a damned good thing those Packard engines are so deep in the hull....

They roll much worse when the damned rubber bladders full of diesel fuel
on
deck get sloshing around in the slop.

Been there, done that....got the T-shirt.

Draft loaded for the Med is only about 8'!

I rode the "Inflict", "Leader" and the "Adroit" in the 80s. Only vessels I
ever rode that "rained" below decks! I'd toss my bedroll in the reel room
because it was dryer than the berthing comparment and I wouldn't have to
"hot bunk". Ha!

"Frogwatch" wrote in message
...
On Dec 29, 7:58 pm, Larry wrote:
Frogwatch wrote in news:d4ef0f4a-2e15-4408-80bb-
:

Now 90 yrs old, He'd still go sailing but he got Parkinsons last year.

My mother suffered with Parkinsons for 28 years. My condolences to you
both. The medical profession and pharmaceutical companies will eat you
alive to stop the shaking. One pill she took twice a day was over $58.

Although my father never did anything that most would say is "heroic",
I am very impressed by him. He raised 9 kids who all went to college
while his salary was never much. When I think of the wonderful things
they had us doing (mostly cheap camping and canoeing), I am extremely
thankful to them. My parents were not wimps, they would take all 9 of
us kids camping in any weather no matter how small we were. They had
us canoeing every isolated body of water in Florida and we all
routinely swam across some serious lakes, stuff I'd never want MY kids
to do, gators be damned.
After all us kids were grown, they had enough money to do cheap
adventure travel hiking up volcanoes in the Galapogos in their late
80s and other crazy stuff. At 82, my dad had his first set of hips
replaced and at 87 wore that set out so he had em replaced again. At
88, one day we went to see a cave entrance near the Chipola River near
Marianna, FL and they insisted they wanted to hike to the river in
spite of having to cross over a beaver dam with rushing water up to
our chests. With dad holding my shoulders we crossed with me thinking
"My sisters (I have 7 sisters) would kill me for allowing em to do
this" but you couldnt stop em.

DB,
My opinion, FWIW, is that any mom and dad (or mom or dad) that make the
effort to do their best to raise thier kids is a hero.
Sounds like your dad was/is a great parent.
I grew up in a little Arizona town and we never had much, and I wouldn't
trade our "adventures" for anyone elses!

"mmc" wrote in
g.com:

I rode the "Inflict", "Leader" and the "Adroit" in the 80s. Only
vessels I ever rode that "rained" below decks! I'd toss my bedroll in
the reel room because it was dryer than the berthing comparment and I
wouldn't have to "hot bunk". Ha!


I rode Adroit in the late 60's, don't remember when. I think I worked
on Leader, too, but don't remember Inflict.

Navy had this goofy flying fishing lure about 15 ft long with scanning
side looking sonar that would draw a pretty nice picture of the bottom
from 15' above it. The sweeps towed it and its computer "flew" it from
a depth sonar that was separate. It's big problem is it had no forward
looking sonar that could see that bouy chain or vertical wall the sweep
was dragging it into a 4 knots. They crashed a lot, bit rebuild
problem. Our machinists took a shine to it when they saw it and made us
a big stainless barbed fishhook we strapped to it in the shop before
someone "important" came to see this boondoggle. It looked like a
fishing lure with a wing, then...(c;]

The other fun thing about this boondoggle was the 2=cylinder, computer-
controlled, diesel genset built into a little fiberglass lawn building
they bolted to the deck of the sweeps to power it. The genset was, when
it was working, dead accurate on 60 Hz so the synchronous scanner motors
in the console tracked the bottom correctly. UNFORTUNATELY, the idiot
that designed it built it BACKWARDS for good safety! The electronics
held the throttle CLOSED! When the electronics failed, this little V-
twin diesel engine's throttle went wide open....really revving the
little bugger up! One MSO captain, I forget which, told his crew to
"Get that damned thing off my deck!" out in the harbor. At wide open
throttle, brave men unsecured it from the deck and pushed it overboard
at full throttle with a black column of smoke rising several hundred
feet straight up on a calm day. As the cabinet had enough air in it for
a few seconds this way, you could hear it running UNDERWATER....at least
until water finally filled the cabinet over the intake....Then it
exploded underwater, most impressive!

The genset re-design took a while and probably cost as much as the whole
program, of course. Stupid idiots. I watched one explode at full
throttle in the parking lot behind the ET shop at MFSGA, formerly
Minecraft Support Unit, one day. Blew the rod right through the side of
the block! BOOM!.....knock, knock, knock....(c;]

I was sent to Minelant to build it a "Qualifications Laboratory" to take
some of the lower level calibrations like meters and simple generators
and scopes off the load of the CNSYD shipyard's lab they were taking
them to. I loved buying new equipment for you. In '77-'79, I got to do
the same thing for the Shah's Iranian Air Force in Tehran....on a
grander scale!

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"mmc" wrote in
g.com:

I rode the "Inflict", "Leader" and the "Adroit" in the 80s. Only
vessels I ever rode that "rained" below decks! I'd toss my bedroll in
the reel room because it was dryer than the berthing comparment and I
wouldn't have to "hot bunk". Ha!


I rode Adroit in the late 60's, don't remember when. I think I worked
on Leader, too, but don't remember Inflict.

Navy had this goofy flying fishing lure about 15 ft long with scanning
side looking sonar that would draw a pretty nice picture of the bottom
from 15' above it. The sweeps towed it and its computer "flew" it from
a depth sonar that was separate. It's big problem is it had no forward
looking sonar that could see that bouy chain or vertical wall the sweep
was dragging it into a 4 knots. They crashed a lot, bit rebuild
problem. Our machinists took a shine to it when they saw it and made us
a big stainless barbed fishhook we strapped to it in the shop before
someone "important" came to see this boondoggle. It looked like a
fishing lure with a wing, then...(c;]

The other fun thing about this boondoggle was the 2=cylinder, computer-
controlled, diesel genset built into a little fiberglass lawn building
they bolted to the deck of the sweeps to power it. The genset was, when
it was working, dead accurate on 60 Hz so the synchronous scanner motors
in the console tracked the bottom correctly. UNFORTUNATELY, the idiot
that designed it built it BACKWARDS for good safety! The electronics
held the throttle CLOSED! When the electronics failed, this little V-
twin diesel engine's throttle went wide open....really revving the
little bugger up! One MSO captain, I forget which, told his crew to
"Get that damned thing off my deck!" out in the harbor. At wide open
throttle, brave men unsecured it from the deck and pushed it overboard
at full throttle with a black column of smoke rising several hundred
feet straight up on a calm day. As the cabinet had enough air in it for
a few seconds this way, you could hear it running UNDERWATER....at least
until water finally filled the cabinet over the intake....Then it
exploded underwater, most impressive!

The genset re-design took a while and probably cost as much as the whole
program, of course. Stupid idiots. I watched one explode at full
throttle in the parking lot behind the ET shop at MFSGA, formerly
Minecraft Support Unit, one day. Blew the rod right through the side of
the block! BOOM!.....knock, knock, knock....(c;]

I was sent to Minelant to build it a "Qualifications Laboratory" to take
some of the lower level calibrations like meters and simple generators
and scopes off the load of the CNSYD shipyard's lab they were taking
them to. I loved buying new equipment for you. In '77-'79, I got to do
the same thing for the Shah's Iranian Air Force in Tehran....on a
grander scale!

I wasn't ships crew on the MSOs just TAD with EOD teams providing support
for training and exercises.
The CO on the Leader gave us each a letter of appreciation for recovering a
Mk 6 mine that was about 90% buried (and still the sonar crew found it!).
The mine hadn't released from the anchor and if it was a warshot the HE had
rotted out before we found it. There was a hole where the extender was
supposed to be and 2 octopus living inside. We must have been quite a show
trying to dig the damn thing up with dust pans! Funny, ships don't carry
shovels....
I beleive the CO made a gift of the mine to the MINEWARCOM HQ and it should
still be there.
Good times Larry.

"mmc" wrote in
g.com:

I wasn't ships crew on the MSOs just TAD with EOD teams providing
support for training and exercises.
The CO on the Leader gave us each a letter of appreciation for
recovering a Mk 6 mine that was about 90% buried (and still the sonar
crew found it!). The mine hadn't released from the anchor and if it
was a warshot the HE had rotted out before we found it. There was a
hole where the extender was supposed to be and 2 octopus living
inside. We must have been quite a show trying to dig the damn thing up
with dust pans! Funny, ships don't carry shovels....
I beleive the CO made a gift of the mine to the MINEWARCOM HQ and it
should still be there.
Good times Larry.



The EOD guys were in our building around the corner from my lab. Scary
guys for the mere ETs and other geeks.....(c;

Glad you survived. I'm amazed anyone could take that kind of pressure.

Did you ever see the mine exploder ship, I've forgotten its name, that had
4 diesel outboard-style motors on its sides whos "foot" flew up when the
mine exploded under her hull filled with steel balls to absorb the
pressure? The crew superstructure was on springs to absorb the shock away
from the men. Of course, she was crewed by "expendables". Her "captain"
was an LTJG so noone "important" had any chance of being hurt if things
didn't go as planned.....sorta like a PT boat.

Evidently the idea worked. But, it was hell on the radio gear!

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"mmc" wrote in
g.com:

I wasn't ships crew on the MSOs just TAD with EOD teams providing
support for training and exercises.
The CO on the Leader gave us each a letter of appreciation for
recovering a Mk 6 mine that was about 90% buried (and still the sonar
crew found it!). The mine hadn't released from the anchor and if it
was a warshot the HE had rotted out before we found it. There was a
hole where the extender was supposed to be and 2 octopus living
inside. We must have been quite a show trying to dig the damn thing up
with dust pans! Funny, ships don't carry shovels....
I beleive the CO made a gift of the mine to the MINEWARCOM HQ and it
should still be there.
Good times Larry.



The EOD guys were in our building around the corner from my lab. Scary
guys for the mere ETs and other geeks.....(c;

Glad you survived. I'm amazed anyone could take that kind of pressure.

Did you ever see the mine exploder ship, I've forgotten its name, that had
4 diesel outboard-style motors on its sides whos "foot" flew up when the
mine exploded under her hull filled with steel balls to absorb the
pressure? The crew superstructure was on springs to absorb the shock away
from the men. Of course, she was crewed by "expendables". Her "captain"
was an LTJG so noone "important" had any chance of being hurt if things
didn't go as planned.....sorta like a PT boat.

Evidently the idea worked. But, it was hell on the radio gear!

Never heard of that ship Larry, I'll have to google it and see if there are
pictures on the web.
I rode a FF before I went EOD and figured our most important job would be to
"take the bullet" (torpedo) for the high value target (carrier, etc) if we
were lucky enough to be in the right spot and had enough time. Now, that
doesn't make you feel expendable?
Yeah, I'm lucky - still got all of my major parts. Left some tissue and bone
in the desert but I'm much better now.

"mmc" wrote in news:495e164a$0$4870
:

Now, that
doesn't make you feel expendable?


ALL enlisted prisoners are expendable, just like enlisted soldiers or
marines.

It took me 20 years to look back on the USN before I finally came to the
realization we were all, once the contract was signed, simply prisoners in
a floating penal institution. Don't think so? Just say "NO" when you were
told to do something, even killing women and kids at Mi Lai.....

People get mad at me when I say I joined the Navy as a way to hide from the
draft....a legal way to hide. Of the 19 of us boys that graduated from my
high school in 1964, 9 of us survived Vietnam. Of the 10 who didn't come
home, 3 are STILL unaccounted for and noone seems to care. Of the 9 who
survived, the two guys who fled Prison America to Canada and Sweden are the
best off of the entire class. One is a retired executive of a Canadian
metal company. The one who went to Sweden because CEO of a major Swedish
corporation. He now lives in the Med, in a mansion overlooking the Greek
coast.

Everyone's lives were "changed" forever, most ruined.

On Dec 28, 3:20*pm, "Gregory Hall" wrote:
Wilbur Hubbard


Two meter troll wrote:
well that clears up the sock puppet mystry.

It wasn't a mystery to most of us... and it's not the first time he's
forgotten who he's signed in as.

DSK

I don't think Neal can afford the good stuff.
It doesn't work as well if the mutton fat and chilli powder was
'previously owned'.


"Capt. JG" wrote:
I actually tried habanera on my Cal 20. As far as I could tell, it made no
difference. LOL


Years ago, a sailing club had a long running experiment in which anti-
fouling paints worked best in local waters. They had several boards
painted with different kinds, properly labelled & dated, and left
hanging about 2' under water for months at a time. Even back then
(about 20 years ago) there were old wives tales circulating about
adding chili powder or jalapeno juice or similar "Muy Caliente"
ingredient to paint for anti-fouling, so the testers at this sailing
club tried it.

Had absolutely zero effect. Apparently barnacles don't have taste
buds.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King