The AT-317/BRR VLF Loop antenna is up once more

[Darrin]

For those that do remember this antenna it was better known as the football and for Torsk she has been in the lowered position for the last 40 years and last Saturday she was raised once more due to the hard work of our vols and a BIG cressent hammer.

Clicka da link and go to page 2 to see it up for the first time in 40 years

http://www.usstorsk.org/weekend/20090516/20090516htma.htm

[JTheotonio]

Tracey found an interesting artifact in the ATR bilges - an old whisky bottle with a little whiskey still in it!

Is that my Gilly bottle? I knew one of you ATR guys took it! 

Well done on getting that antenna up.  E-maa-gin 40 yrs of pounding on it with a big hammer.  There is a switch U know...LOL

[Lance Dean]

Very cool Darrin.  Amazing how there is always something new to do. 

[Darrin]

JT are u sure that you didn't leave it in the ATR a number of years ago when you were borrowing some gilly and nearly got caught??  And yes a flick of da switch would have been nice but our hydraulics do not operate anymore (no DC power, lack of fluid and valves all need to be rebuilt)

[JTheotonio]

  No I'm pretty sure - cause I never venture past After Battery - that's where th Bug Machine was so why go past it?  Sides - those (U) guys in ATF were known for midnight raids  Us FTR guys (me) were total gen=teel=men! Why R chief held church services up there every Sunday! 

Maybe it was one of those guys from Sonar - they could never be trusted,   With all those ears ya had to be careful what U said.  I knew one that swore he knew the Captain's safe combination just from listen' on his sonar one day.  We called him "Tumblers!"  Funny somehow he had more liberty passes than anyone on the boat  Tumblers got off more than Ol' Doc Foreskin!

We pulled into Jamaica (Ochoa Rios) on the Picuda once and I'm topside watch as the first guys left on liberty and I spots this old guy running in the weeds chasing a native girl (not much on too) through the bushes.  Well I grabs the binoculars and this guy - uncovered and now shirtless, only had 3 fingers on one hand - it's Doc Foreskin! But there was Tumblers tending a wash tub of beer laughing his butt off at the Doc.  The first guys were just stepping off the gangway.  So ya know these two had something on the Brass.  Gotta understand that Doc was married with about a baseball team of kids livin' in Key West.  Real religious man too - so he says.

For the to days we were in port those two manned that wash tub of beer.  I wasn't sure but I think somehow they were skimming money off the sale of beer to us.  Bout the time we was leavin.' we see ol' Doc fall flat on his face - passed out cold.  Native girl is now screaming - Tumblers is laughing and we got a shore party mustered to drag Doc back on board.   Tumblers falls over but is bragging for some coffee can - we think it was the money can - and gets up running.

Well if you never been in Ochoa Rios back then, the dirt is red clay and would stick to your whites worse than gravy.  About everyone had to shirt can one set of dress white pants cause of this red dirt.  But Tumblers and Doc - lost an entire set of dress whites.  Ya know, Tumblers, cause he's a Sonar guy, didn't see much sun, so his skin is now dyed that red clay color too - kinda looked like Sitting Bull now.

Both got poured below - stunk up FTR - and no one said a word about either one.  Cruise back to Key West we had no Sonarman or Doc on duty.

I guess I dei-gressed a bit - maybe I did drop my bottle some place.  Glad it was found.  Gilly anyone?

[Darrin]

Why YES my FELLOW FTR friend I will have a tall glass of your gilly, until I got to Torsk I had never worked in a ATR due to 688's having only a FTR and I would still rather be in the bow leadin the way then the stern hopin and prayin that the old man would use the ATR.  And yes it is true that the really religous guys with a bunch of kids at home were the worst when it came to liberty because they were chasing every female that was upright, breathing and looked reasonably decent   well maybe 2 of the three didn't really matter much, the breathing was a must     And yes I did blame a LOT of the raids on the AGang and their Chief knew it and would get me back from time to time and for the most part it was all in good fun until I finally pissed him off in port and A Gang was cleaning the San Tanks...........   That is when he did the thing that I will never forget.......

NTINS..... There I was a young newly minted TM3(SS) and on duty in port in Pearl and throughout the last couple of weeks I had been tormenting the A Gang and their Chief was waiting to get me back when he and I both were on duty together... SO I just got off of topside watch and I go below to the Room to change out of my working whites when I hear the dutiful call of their MMC from AMR yelling "Young Singer don't put those dungarees on go ahead and put a poopie suit on"  and me being the newly minted TM3 knowing that we had work to due on the tubes was thinking that he was going to let me get the PM's done early and work on some other gear, well my friend that wasn't the case because when I went to see him in proscribed uniform he was waiting for me at the AMR door with a LARGE putty knife, a EAB mask and a HUGE smile on his face..   About that time his guys got the San Tank #2 top off and he was nice enough to tell me that my TMC had loaned me to the A Div for the day so I could help them in whatever they needed and that my TMC was tired of listening to him bitch about me and a few others tormenting his sailors.. 

So now the look of fear aparently had hit my face when I realized that the help that I was going to provide was to scrape the inside of the San Tank and he got a big smile on his face along with his guys that were there with him.  Realizing that I had got the poo end of the stick (pun intended) I dutifully donned the EAB and entered into San 2 and started scraping the inside of the tank, while they had pumped most of it out and they were nice enough to put rubber gloves on and tape them in place along with rubber boots overtop of my boots and then tape them inplace it was still a nasty job.  About half way through the cleaning I got wrapped up insomething that at first scared me until I realized it was a white sheet off of one of the bunks in the boat and of course we could not leave that in there so it was ever so carefully handed out only to have it wrung out before I could  escape. At that point I climed out of the tank took a shower with my clothes on and stripped the boats and gloves off and then went topside and jumped into the harbor. After about 10 minutes of swimming in the harbor they put the jacobs ladder out for me and told me to take another shower and go see the MMC. So thinking that I was going back into the tank I went down to AMR and to my disbelief there was the MMC with a plate of food for me and a warning.... Quite messing with my guys and then the smile came out and he told me that he didn't think that I had the cajones to go into the tank let alone clean over half of it.

Nearly a year later he disqualified me on all of my watch stations inport and that story is for another day

[Bill Wasil]

No I'm pretty sure - cause I never venture past After Battery - that's where th Bug Machine was so why go past it?  Sides - those (U) guys in ATF were known for midnight raids  Us FTR guys (me) were total gen=teel=men! Why R chief held church services up there every Sunday! 

Maybe it was one of those guys from Sonar - they could never be trusted,   With all those ears ya had to be careful what U said.  I knew one that swore he knew the Captain's safe combination just from listen' on his sonar one day.  We called him "Tumblers!"  Funny somehow he had more liberty passes than anyone on the boat  Tumblers got off more than Ol' Doc Foreskin!

We pulled into Jamaica (Ochoa Rios) on the Picuda once and I'm topside watch as the first guys left on liberty and I spots this old guy running in the weeds chasing a native girl (not much on too) through the bushes.  Well I grabs the binoculars and this guy - uncovered and now shirtless, only had 3 fingers on one hand - it's Doc Foreskin! But there was Tumblers tending a wash tub of beer laughing his butt off at the Doc.  The first guys were just stepping off the gangway.  So ya know these two had something on the Brass.  Gotta understand that Doc was married with about a baseball team of kids livin' in Key West.  Real religious man too - so he says.

For the to days we were in port those two manned that wash tub of beer.  I wasn't sure but I think somehow they were skimming money off the sale of beer to us.  Bout the time we was leavin.' we see ol' Doc fall flat on his face - passed out cold.  Native girl is now screaming - Tumblers is laughing and we got a shore party mustered to drag Doc back on board.   Tumblers falls over but is bragging for some coffee can - we think it was the money can - and gets up running.

Well if you never been in Ochoa Rios back then, the dirt is red clay and would stick to your whites worse than gravy.  About everyone had to shirt can one set of dress white pants cause of this red dirt.  But Tumblers and Doc - lost an entire set of dress whites.  Ya know, Tumblers, cause he's a Sonar guy, didn't see much sun, so his skin is now dyed that red clay color too - kinda looked like Sitting Bull now.

Both got poured below - stunk up FTR - and no one said a word about either one.  Cruise back to Key West we had no Sonarman or Doc on duty.

I guess I dei-gressed a bit - maybe I did drop my bottle some place.  Glad it was found.  Gilly anyone?

  An funny story, John.  I noticed you got your Sonar licks in at the same time.   

[Bill Wasil]

Is that my Gilly bottle? I knew one of you ATR guys took it! 

Well done on getting that antenna up.  E-maa-gin 40 yrs of pounding on it with a big hammer.  There is a switch U know...LOL

I don't think that's your Gilly bottle, John.  It still had some left in it.

[JTheotonio]

 :coolsmiley:Evidence panted -  that was not my Gilly!