Sea Story 2

I reported aboard Bang, SS385, in New London right out of sub school as a fireman apprentice. Two week later we left State Pier on my first cruise. We were headed for Scotland and points north. An hour out of Long Island sound the sea kicked up and I didn't care where we were headed, I was seasick. Not just seasick, I mean sick as a dying dog. As you know, that doesn't mean a thing. It was time to go on my watch in the forward engine room. There's a thermometer way down in the forward end of the bilges on the seawater inlet valve to the engine heat exchanger. It's called the "injection temperature" and I was required to climb down into the bilge and read that thermometer each hour. Control kept calling for the latest injection temperature. Apparently, when the temperature starts upward we are entering the Gulf Stream and con needed the info to adjust for drift. No satellites to steer by in those (good old?) days. Sick as I was I did what I was told. Trouble was, the water was rising slowly each time I went down there. Apparently the rough seas were coming up under the Guppy sail and being sucked down the main induction valve. This water was draining out of the induction ductwork, outboard of #1 engine and into the bilge. That's what it's supposed to do but I did not know that. It just kept rising. Finally, it was over the deck plates and covering the thermometer. I climbed down, could not see the thermometer and climbed back up to inform my rated boss that I could not get a reading. Man, did he move. He called for the drain pump, but nothing happened. A bale of rags had floated lose, broke open, and the rags were blocking the drain pump intake. I was told to "get my gd*# ass down there and clear that f#k*g intake. "I can't reach it," I pleaded. "Tough s**t", he said. I went back down, reached as far as I could, but was a foot short. I looked up the deck hatch for some pity, got more s**t, and tried again. There was nothing else to do. I took a breath and stuck my head and shoulders down under the greasy, foul smelling bilge water and cleared the intake. A few minutes later the bilge was dry. I know now what damage that water could have done, and how lucky I am that it didn't. Maybe my boss should have trained me better, should have thought about all that water coming in, or at least checked on what I was doing, but that doesn't matter. We both learned something that day and we became good friend and had a few good liberties together. I forgot about being seasick after that, and was never seasick again. I don't recommend bilge water as a cure, but it worked for me.
George Bard