School of the boat 4 Mar 09 (underwater log)

[Darrin]

John,
I don't know that he even owns a bath tub but assuming that he has a child on the way him and his wife may have invested in one.. and yes that crew was and still is something special and they will go down in history of bringing a very badly damaged boat home. MM2(SS) Joey Ashley lost his life in that accident and his family has been able to find peace and solice knowing that the crew and the Navy did everything in their power to save him, Dan and Vicki Ashley are fantastic people and they maintain contact with the current crew of the San Fran and they have been invited to come to watch her go back to sea once more and for them it hopefully will be closure and knowing that Joey is still with his boat at least in spirit and will watch over the crew.

[Lance Dean]

Oh I fully understand guys.  It's just that a submarine that can't (quickly) submerge is a sitting duck.  At least the WWII subs had deck guns.

[SOB]

I am pretty sure it works by sensing the flow of water over the "sword" using electromagnetic interference.  It puts out a magnetic field, and the faster you go the more it distorts.  It is only approximately correct in measuring the vessel's motion since you might be running with or against a current.

Constructive nit-pick here - the sword is magnetohydrodynamic, i.e. no electromagnetic interference involved. The shape creates a venturi effect that is measured by magnetic "strain guages" and the differential is what the system reports. The faster the sword moves thru the water, the greater the voltage differences and hence the higher indicated speeds.

The error factor comes in due to current set and drift literally carrying the boat in the direction of the set. Because the water around the boat is moving essentially at the same uniform velocity, the pit log does NOT detect its effect. Thus the boat's true SOG (speed over ground) could be computed by adding the pit log and current vectors --- except the boat had no way to know what the current was except to estimate it from the cumulative DRT reset after getting an accurate fix.

Nuke boats with SINS and now GPS is a whole different story ....

[Darrin]

Thank you for the correction, I am going off of what the Fleet submarine manual shows online so there is a little power curve being qualified on a LA Boat (718) and then teaching the Balao class that I have never worked on. 

[SOB]

Darrin - my flathat is off to you and anyone else who makes an effort to learn the old diesel boar systems -- GATO, BALAO, or TENCH. This raises a serious point that a few of us old farts have been having serious discussions over recently.

Our experience with PAMPANITO is that our dedicated volunteer corps of DBF sailors is thinning almost by the week. At age 70, I'm literally the snot-nosed kid of the group. Each of us has our own medical issues besides being cranky as hell - the point being that the day isn't all that far off when, like our WWII brothers, we will all be history.

Harry Nystrom, Jim Kyser, and I have been actively recruiting from within the local area nuke boat sailor ranks because we know that our days on the job are numbered. While we can get docents fairly directly and get them up on the step to represent and interpret a WWII submarine to the visiting public, we've really had a tough time finding dirty-hands volunteers who are willing to crawl this venerable DBF's bilges, as it were. Thus, we don't have successors in training - that is the really sad part.

Again, I as well as every old fart diesel boat sailor I know genuniely appreciates - and welcomes - our nuke brothers to the diesel boat museum community. Any curmudgeon who has an anti-nuke bias needs some serious one-on-one "counselling."

///SOB

[Darrin]

SOB,
We have had the same problem on Torsk and due to the dedication of her vol's we have been able to bring onboard some new life to her and yes we have the same discussions that Pamp and other museums have had and that bothers me and our crew because when our Diesel boat sailors are gone it will be left to the crews who didn't sail on them to save them and in some cases (Drum and I think Batfish) that has already happened and they are picking up the work however slowly they just like me and the "younger" crew of Torsk.. At the tender age of 37 I am one of the "young pups" and being nearly 4 hours away from her 1 way I only get to spend a couple of days a year working on her and I cherish every day that I get to spend with my shipmates working on an incredible piece of history.  IF you get the chance come out for our work weekend this October, it is truly worth it if you haven't had the opportunity to do so already because you will see how our family gets together and works and puts in some serious effort in restoring her and yes we do play as hard as we work

[SOB]

I visited TORSK several years back (has to be 8+ at least) while I was in DC on business for a couple of weeks. Gil Bohannon was pretty active at the time, so another old shipmate living in Montgomery MD and I met up with him - and a gaggle of the Bandits - one weekend.

I was really impressed with what I saw with the TORSK Bandit operation and that experience is probably 99% responsible for my getting involved with PAMPANITO once I retired and quit spending 200+ nights a year in some hotel on business travel. I really miss the travel - even today because I often had the flexibility to visit other museum boats, meet up with other submariners I otherwise knew only thru one of the BBSs (actually, only Roundtini had one running way back then) and attend a USSVI or SVWWII meeting along the way.

A little bit more expansion of the recruiting thought here - talking about TORSK reminds me that the submarine museum community also has a vast reservoir of untapped talent in non-submariners as well. I can name several who I've met over the past several years who are making significant contributions to our efforts simply because they are interested in what we are trying to accomplish. Focusing on that gene pool is probably as important as the nuke subvets in cultivating future generations of "Stewards of the Legacy."

///SOB

[Darrin]

In the 5+ years that I have been on Torsk I cannot believe how far she has come in since I first walked onboard because of a dare from TORSKDOC, there always is something new that either has been restored or acquried and installed to the just plain it really works and you would not believe how proud I am of the Torsk Family. If you make the trip back to see the Torsk SOB you will not be disappointed and my friend you probably wouldn't believe how far she has come since you were onboard last and if you haven't kept up with how far she has come then here is the link. 

www.usstorsk.org and click on activities to see all of the work weekends and other events that we have had over the years

And yes we do have some non submarine folks working on her to include Army vets, to people like Gil who never served but want to make a difference and he still works on her and the only thing that I can tell you is to post onboard or at the ticket booth that if the tourist's are interested in volunteering to contact a member of the volunteer crew (designate a couple of folks) and set up a time for them to come down to the boat and start working with the crew.