This is a true story. Although I didn't think it funny when it happened, in retrospect I now do. This story and more than 30 others will be in my future book "Blue Water, Red Blood" Duane COLLISION ! By Duane Beaver Published in Sail Magazine DAMN! A HUGE BLACK SHADOW LOOMED OMINOUSLY, ALMOST DIRECTLY UNDER MY HULL. WE’RE GOING TO COLIDE! WHAT CAN I DO? SOLO SAIL That morning as I began my sail, the weather was foggy with only a moderate breeze, a perfect sailing day. I was sailing alone as I had many times previously, since it was difficult recruiting a sailing partner in the winter months. Freedom, my 24 foot, Windrose sailboat was outfitted with a tall mast, full mainsail and a 150 Genoa headsail. Sailing by one of the oil islands located in the Long Beach harbor, I slowed to better view the full sized Pink Submarine anchored there. This was the Pink submarine used in the 1970’s era television program of the same name. I always got a kick out of seeing a submarine painted a sexy pink. NAVY CONTACT I passed by the Navy base a few miles further along. This was one of my favorite day-sails, as I was usually “pinged” with the docked ships’ sonar as I passed. Today the sonar operator playfully cranked up the sonar to near max. I could hear the pulse charging toward me and could see the violent vibration on the water surface. It looked like a school of small, terrorized fish breaking the water surface. The sonar wave pounded against the hull of my boat, sounding like a sledgehammer pounding it. Even the mast and guy wires vibrated with a high pitched hum..m..m. Maybe they were trying to tell me something, like, get that toy boat out of here. I waved my fist in the air in the direction of the operator in glee and continued on my way. Later I looked back at this incident as a warning of things to come. INTO THE FOG I sailed toward the Los Angeles entrance of the breakwater, enjoying the boom of the foghorn as I cruised passed. Ah, the fresh sea breeze and the freedom of the open ocean, there is nothing like it. Normally there is very little traffic entering or exiting the harbor but today two sail boat races were in progress. The 50 footers were lined up, bow to stern, with their colorful spinnakers in full bloom. It’s a beautiful sight, but pity the sailor who challenges their right-of-way while racing. You could be run over or at a minimum, cursed roundly. After the first few leaders passed I was able to squeeze through before the next flotilla charged by. I’ll have to be careful in this fog, I thought to myself. Settling down, I set course in the general direction of Catalina Island. The breeze was a perfect 8 to 10 knots. Freedom charged through the 2-foot seas, settling down to her hull speed of 5.5 knots. Who could ask for anything better than a nice breeze, moderate seas and a mistress, in the form of an unleashed sailboat? No phones, the marine radio turned off, the fresh air of the ocean blowing across my face and streaming my hair behind me. My only concern were the huge ships entering and exiting the harbor in the thickening fog. What if one of them runs me down in the fog; will I be able to see them soon enough to get out of their way? FOG HORNS Once I was a few miles offshore, the commercial vessels paid little or no attention to my small sailboat and in fact had a difficult time seeing it on their radar screens. Keeping an eye out for these giants was usually not a problem but today the heavy building fog restricted visibility to less than 300 feet. Don’t worry, I thought, They sound their foghorns every minute or so, if I stay out of their assigned steaming channels I should be okay. (Ships in fog sound their fog-horns every minute or so and wait to see if a nearby vessel responds in kind.) Still, several times I heard a foghorn nearby, unable to determine its direction. All I could do was blow my own foghorn and listen for its echo and a possible response. What was really alarming was when I could hear the rush of water and feel the vibration of the engines from the vessel passing near me, but see nothing. RETURNING TO THE HARBOR As the day wore-on the fog increased, limiting visibility to 100 feet or less. I felt it was prudent to head for the Marina. Cranking up my trusty Radio Direction Finder I dialed in my favorite Long Beach radio station to home in on. Some time later I began hearing the foghorn at the Los Angeles entrance. Wishing to enter the harbor through the Long Beach entrance, I adjusted the sails to beat along the rocky breakwater. By this time the breeze had freshened to 12 knots, requiring me to de-power the sails and settle into a hard beat. Since it’s several miles between the two entrances, I kicked back and enjoyed the salt spray on my face. Nearing the entrance, I thought to myself, I’m sure glad there’s no traffic to interfere with my entering the harbor. Little did I know? WHAT’S THIS? Freedom was only a few hundred feet from the entrance when I was able to make out the opening in the breakwater. Standing at the helm I strained forward to see if there was any conflicting traffic. Thank God for small favors, I thought to myself as I settled back and steered for the center of the opening. As I came parallel to the near side of the entrance I saw what appeared to be the superstructure of a powerboat to my right and calculated that at our present velocities I would be clear of the entrance before he arrived. By now the wind had backed enough so that I was having a difficult time squeaking through the entrance without tacking. I definitely did not want to tack within the entrance in this fog. WHALE? Suddenly, out of the corner of my left eye I saw the bow wave of what I thought was a small powerboat just through the entrance. Before I could react, a large, ominous, dark shape loomed underwater, directly beneath my bow. “OH NO! A WHALE,” I screamed aloud. SUBMARINE ? Then my brain connected the bow-wake and the ship super-structure and a terrorizing thought flashed across my mind, SUBMARINE! Shoving the tiller violently away from my body, I released the Genoa sheets. Freedom came to a near halt and slammed over on its side, with the mainsail flat on the water. Damn, I’m going to run over a sub, I thought. As the boat began righting itself I watched in horror as the submerged submarine squeaked by, so close I could have touched it with my boat hook. As the conning tower passed there was no notice taken of my being there at all. I doubt the pilot ever saw me or even knew that I was in the area. As loud as my heart was pounding I’m sure he could hear it. Where in hell did the submarine come from and what was he doing submerged within a congested area like this? After my heart dropped back out of my throat and I began breathing again, I tacked and entered the harbor behind the huge underwater vessel, which I estimated to be over 500 feet long. I followed it all the way into the Navy Base, just to convince myself that I wasn’t crazy and hallucinating. UNBELIEVABLE When I arrived home and told my story, no one would believe me, that is until several days later, when the Long Beach newspaper printed the following story: NUCLEAR SUB “The US Navy furnished a Nuclear Submarine for filming the movie Hunt for Red October, adapted from a book by the same name written by Tom Clancy, about a Russian Nuclear Submarine, whose crew defected to the U.S.” FOOTNOTE: Several weeks later there was a mysterious sinking of a large tugboat. It was towing a barge filled with large rocks from Catalina Island to the Long Beach Harbor. Somewhere near mid-channel, in the middle of a moonless night, “something” hooked the one-quarter mile long steel cable between them, pulling the tug backward through the water, sinking it. Two crewmembers of the tug, which were in bunks below deck, were drowned. The skipper of the boat was later rescued alive, but could shed no light on the mysterious sinking. It was later determined that a Navy Nuclear Submarine docked at Long Beach, had hooked the cable as it was surfacing and dragged the tug rapidly backward until it filled with water and sank, breaking the cable. The captain of the submarine claimed that he did not realize they had hooked the cable until they arrived in port and found damage to their conning tower. A SECOND FOOTNOTE: When this article was published in Sail Magazine, a man claiming to be a former submarine crewman, wrote a letter to the editor stating that this couldn’t happen, as Navy submarines “NEVER” enter a harbor or operate near harbor entrances while partially submerged. When I attempted to contact him at the location given in his letter so that he could read the newspaper article, I could find no one by that name in the area. If he wishes to respond to this article he can contact the author at the location listed in this books’ heading. A shortened version of this article was published in the January, 2001 issue of SAIL magazine, page 10
Funny sailing story-but true
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Wasn't submerged
A submarine on the surface has much more hull under the water than above, and there is water between the main hull and the stabilizers at the stern, then the prop itself is aft of the rudder that you can see. The "conning tower" is more properly the "sail" (how ironic) and subs are hard to see when surfaced becuase of how little suoerstructure is exposed. When you are built to sink on demand, you don't want to have to take on any excess ballast. They are REALLY hard to see in fog (what isn't?) and if they are head on, the cross-section is very small. Submarines DO NOT enter harbors submerged, or leave them that way either, at least if the harbor is one of ours, but so much is below the surface one could imagine it to be. If you could see the sail, it had successfully completed another cycle of sink and rise. In the New London area, they are ubiquitous, and we poor recreational boaters are required to give them wide berth. You are lucky. Bill Coxe, O28 (Avail)/O40, New London, CT
A submarine on the surface has much more hull under the water than above, and there is water between the main hull and the stabilizers at the stern, then the prop itself is aft of the rudder that you can see. The "conning tower" is more properly the "sail" (how ironic) and subs are hard to see when surfaced becuase of how little suoerstructure is exposed. When you are built to sink on demand, you don't want to have to take on any excess ballast. They are REALLY hard to see in fog (what isn't?) and if they are head on, the cross-section is very small. Submarines DO NOT enter harbors submerged, or leave them that way either, at least if the harbor is one of ours, but so much is below the surface one could imagine it to be. If you could see the sail, it had successfully completed another cycle of sink and rise. In the New London area, they are ubiquitous, and we poor recreational boaters are required to give them wide berth. You are lucky. Bill Coxe, O28 (Avail)/O40, New London, CT
correct me if I'm wrong
but aren't subs the best at seeing without seeing? Aren't they designed so that they see you, you don't see them? Don't they have the best equipment to find near-by vessels without actually seeing them visually? Sounds to me like somebody was asleep on the job.
but aren't subs the best at seeing without seeing? Aren't they designed so that they see you, you don't see them? Don't they have the best equipment to find near-by vessels without actually seeing them visually? Sounds to me like somebody was asleep on the job.
Submarines don't see so well
Here's a link to a CNN story about the Japanese fishing boat that was sunk off the coast of Oahu a few years ago. If you sail anywhere even in the remote vicinity of Pearl Harbor (like a hundred miles or two) you have to really be on the lookout for those buggers.
Here's a link to a CNN story about the Japanese fishing boat that was sunk off the coast of Oahu a few years ago. If you sail anywhere even in the remote vicinity of Pearl Harbor (like a hundred miles or two) you have to really be on the lookout for those buggers.
Morrie is Right about Pearl
I would see them all the time when I sailed out of Hickam Harbor. Once was even asked to change my course by the Coast Guard when a really big one (Michigan Class I think) was coming into port. What could have made it real interesting was the date aboard my boat was Admiral Crowe's daughter Bambi.
I would see them all the time when I sailed out of Hickam Harbor. Once was even asked to change my course by the Coast Guard when a really big one (Michigan Class I think) was coming into port. What could have made it real interesting was the date aboard my boat was Admiral Crowe's daughter Bambi.
Here's a pic of one...
(well, pic to follow) that I and a group of fellow southbound boaters encountered in Norfolk a year or so ago. It was almost impossible to tell what was actually coming at us until it was right on us. There was no radio info (I guess security?), and it took me a while to figure it out. I, and the other sailors just slowed and stayed as far off as possible, with all the limitations in the Norfolk channel. Another faster trawler traveling with us wasn't so lucky. He stayed at speed (prob 6-8 knots), passing the sailboats and got right on the sub before he realized what it was. Suddenly the navy gun boats swarmed his 42' Grand Banks and last I saw, he was to port tied up with folks aboard. Luckliy they don't bother us too much up in the Chesapeake Bay. Of course it today's climiate, it's probably only a matter of time.
(well, pic to follow) that I and a group of fellow southbound boaters encountered in Norfolk a year or so ago. It was almost impossible to tell what was actually coming at us until it was right on us. There was no radio info (I guess security?), and it took me a while to figure it out. I, and the other sailors just slowed and stayed as far off as possible, with all the limitations in the Norfolk channel. Another faster trawler traveling with us wasn't so lucky. He stayed at speed (prob 6-8 knots), passing the sailboats and got right on the sub before he realized what it was. Suddenly the navy gun boats swarmed his 42' Grand Banks and last I saw, he was to port tied up with folks aboard. Luckliy they don't bother us too much up in the Chesapeake Bay. Of course it today's climiate, it's probably only a matter of time.
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