Posted on 03/23/2016 1:25:55 PM PDT by NRx
I had no idea. Thanks IMR, one just doesn’t think of those things.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea
If the water was bad enough to sink the ship then I imagine it'd make it hard to swim anywhere. Plus it was March so the water would be pretty cold.
The Conestoga page at
Navsource.org
Has a list of all the crew members lost on her. Jones was the only officer.
I think since undertaking that long voyage to Hawaii that they were towing a coal barge to refuel from.
Searchers about twenty years ago thought they had found Waratah but it turned out to be a u-boat sinking from WW2.
It says it was a tug boat, do tug boats usually go out that far?
I’m not a Navy guy, only time I spent on a boat was getting to the SE Asia theatre (and hated every damn bit of it), so am kind of curious what Navy Tugs were used for? The same as here to bring big ships into harbor?
Just curious, seems like there are quite a few Navy folks on FR.>>>> i’m not navy but this i know: if you need a tug boat in american samoa. you either build it there or sail it there.
Thanks for posting, great story.
Someone help me out, it looks like the gents wearing bow-ties are Chiefs. Is/was that a common uniform item and if so is to limited to Chiefs or can/did Officers wear them too?
So sad. It must be incredibly difficult for families to handle the peacetime losses as being anything other than a waste. God bless our troops, and God comfort their families.
Yes, the uniform of Chief Petty Officers used to include a black bow tie.
>>The famous Potato(e) Patch, (Six Fathom Bank) is located just east of the “Gate”, not out to the Faralones.
Read the descriptions below. Under certain conditions the Potato Patch can extend to the Faralones, slightly North and East of the Golden Gate. There’s a smaller version just South of the GG as well. Northward coastal currents carry most of the Bay silt to the North.
“Northernmost area of San Francisco Bar alluvial silt deposits, which bar entry to the Golden Gate and require dredging. Waves breaking over the shoal are visible at low tides from the coastal hills between Fort Cronkhite and Tennessee Valley. Named for the 1800s potato farms near Bolinas Lagoon which shipped to markets in San Francisco: “Occasionally a potato boat would capsize on the sand bar, spilling its load...”
“On official nautical charts, Potato Patch Shoal is part of the larger Four Fathom Bank outside of the San Francisco Bay. This is an expanse of relatively shallow reef covering several square miles, with water depths ranging from 23 to 36 feet. Considering how far those depths extend from shore and how big the waves get during winter swells, that’s almost the equivalent of dry, sucking reef more than a mile out to sea.
In winter, the Potato Patch catches hell from all of the energy pouring into the Bay Area from the North Pacific. On a big day, the Patch is creepy — a minefield of shifting, throwing peaks, extending from a couple of hundred yards offshore all the way to the horizon.”
>>I see two black guys...I thought Americans were racist and didn’t allow blacks to do anything....
Most likely cooks. In later years, cooks and orderlies were mostly Philippino.
US Navy has specialty ocean going long range tugs to handle disabled warships. They have massive capabilities to handle high seas, and special engines to pull loads as well as recover wrecks.
The “Apache” is one recently in the news: On 31 October 2015 “Apache” searched and located the missing cargo container ship MV El Faro, which was lost with all hands during Hurricane Joaquin, on 1 October 2015, east of the Bahamas.
USNS Apache: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Apache_%28T-ATF-172%29
That is some tide run... huh? Going before the wind and diesel full out... what hp? Scary for the steerage problem that would present on its own.
Pacific is cold all year-—wet suit to surf. San Francisco can have high temperatures in the 60’s in summer. Point Reyes seashore-—placed beer in the surf to keep cold.
The water bounces around from there to about a mile outside of the GG bridge. Wonderful way to destroy a beautiful day on a small fishing boat by barfing your brains out. By the time the swells smooth out you'd rather just go aground off the Marin coast than back the way you came. At least that's how I felt on my 13th birthday.
USNS Apache appears built along the lineage of North Sea stack supply/tow or research/dive vessels serving in the Gulf of Mexico. They have a relatively flat bottom and wallow in beam seas above 8 foot.
A true ocean going tug has a deeper hull with a different profile to ride a steep swell. The tug aspect ratio results in a vessel much shorter versus the beam, allowing more agility in turns. Here is a representative example.
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