My late husband worked on tugboats in SF Bay for many years. He loved/hated it. It was hard work under often difficult conditions. I went out on a tug a couple of times. It was kind of thrilling to chug under the GG Bridge in darkness and up to a ship waiting outside the bay for its pilot, then watch as the pilot climbed the rope ladder …
My late husband worked on tugboats in SF Bay for many years. He loved/hated it. It was hard work under often difficult conditions. I went out on a tug a couple of times. It was kind of thrilling to chug under the GG Bridge in darkness and up to a ship waiting outside the bay for its pilot, then watch as the pilot climbed the rope ladder of the swaying ship with spotlights on him. But, the tugs' galleys smelled strongly of diesel and bacon. There were fatal accidents - a deckhand was impaled on metal post at the dock when he fell from the deck; a tugboat was lost with all 6 crew when it went out in a big storm to rescue a paper barge from BC whose original tug had been broken loose by the storm. The job paid well, with 4 days on, 4 days off.
One of the most memorable experiences of my time in the Navy was when we would be pulling into Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico on the boat. The water gets shallow pretty far out, so we would usually surface over 30 minutes before we hit the actual entrance to the bay. Clear Caribbean weather, crystal clear water, a 10ish knot breeze, standing on the hull. You could look over the side and see the bottom... plus you were out of the stink of the inside of the boat.
In the submarine service, it is the most senior people who go topside to do the line handling (and there is firece competition for the spots), unlike the surface fleet where it is generally the noobs.
I remember being on my Navy ship (a large one) in the late 80's going under the GG bridge heading out to sea one brisk Bay Area morning. It was totally enthralling to watch the city skyline slowly get smaller as we came upon the bridge. The very amazing thing is the optical illusion caused by being on our very large and tall platform with our mast being many feet higher than the ship's bridge...and approaching the GG bridge giving every appearance that we weren't going to fit under it. It appears so much like you're going to hit the bridge until you go under it and then realize how much taller the bridge is when you are directly under it. It was a pretty amazing thing to watch and participate in.
When I was attending SUNY Maritime, the Throggs Neck bridge the campus resided under had a maintenance worker fall from it into the drink in 2012. Even with the USCG on site immediately (their academy was on the opposite side of the Long Island Sound), the currents toke that dude and he was presumed dead. A lot of people don't understand that operating on the water is a lot like operating in outer space--albeit with oxygen present so long as you're not a submariner. The environment is constantly trying to kill you and it's up to human engineering and protocols to prevent the environment from killing you via hypothermia, dehydration, or spatial drift, etc.
Correction: the USMMA academy is on the other side of the LIS. USCG academy is in Connecticut or something. Either way, USCG was on site hella quickly given how seriously NYC took terrorism post-9/11 (with USCG being part of DHS and not DOD) and that dude was still presumed dead really quickly as well. And that's a pretty busy channel as far as ship traffic goes.
My late husband worked on tugboats in SF Bay for many years. He loved/hated it. It was hard work under often difficult conditions. I went out on a tug a couple of times. It was kind of thrilling to chug under the GG Bridge in darkness and up to a ship waiting outside the bay for its pilot, then watch as the pilot climbed the rope ladder of the swaying ship with spotlights on him. But, the tugs' galleys smelled strongly of diesel and bacon. There were fatal accidents - a deckhand was impaled on metal post at the dock when he fell from the deck; a tugboat was lost with all 6 crew when it went out in a big storm to rescue a paper barge from BC whose original tug had been broken loose by the storm. The job paid well, with 4 days on, 4 days off.
One of the most memorable experiences of my time in the Navy was when we would be pulling into Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico on the boat. The water gets shallow pretty far out, so we would usually surface over 30 minutes before we hit the actual entrance to the bay. Clear Caribbean weather, crystal clear water, a 10ish knot breeze, standing on the hull. You could look over the side and see the bottom... plus you were out of the stink of the inside of the boat.
In the submarine service, it is the most senior people who go topside to do the line handling (and there is firece competition for the spots), unlike the surface fleet where it is generally the noobs.
I remember being on my Navy ship (a large one) in the late 80's going under the GG bridge heading out to sea one brisk Bay Area morning. It was totally enthralling to watch the city skyline slowly get smaller as we came upon the bridge. The very amazing thing is the optical illusion caused by being on our very large and tall platform with our mast being many feet higher than the ship's bridge...and approaching the GG bridge giving every appearance that we weren't going to fit under it. It appears so much like you're going to hit the bridge until you go under it and then realize how much taller the bridge is when you are directly under it. It was a pretty amazing thing to watch and participate in.
Alondra, that sounds like dangerous work. I can see why he loved/hated it.
When I was attending SUNY Maritime, the Throggs Neck bridge the campus resided under had a maintenance worker fall from it into the drink in 2012. Even with the USCG on site immediately (their academy was on the opposite side of the Long Island Sound), the currents toke that dude and he was presumed dead. A lot of people don't understand that operating on the water is a lot like operating in outer space--albeit with oxygen present so long as you're not a submariner. The environment is constantly trying to kill you and it's up to human engineering and protocols to prevent the environment from killing you via hypothermia, dehydration, or spatial drift, etc.
Correction: the USMMA academy is on the other side of the LIS. USCG academy is in Connecticut or something. Either way, USCG was on site hella quickly given how seriously NYC took terrorism post-9/11 (with USCG being part of DHS and not DOD) and that dude was still presumed dead really quickly as well. And that's a pretty busy channel as far as ship traffic goes.
The US Coast Guard Academy is in New London CT.
Ya' gotta have "the right stuff", as Tom Wolfe put it, to do that work.