Reporter's Notebook

Underway at 44 knots

ABOARD THE FREEDOM – After a day, new parts flown in from who-knows-where and a heroic effort by the ship’s engineers, the Freedom’s engines roared back to life last night. I was in the wardroom pecking away on this laptop when the first generator spooled up, tickling the table and chairs like one of those airport massagers. The propulsion diesels followed. As I kept working, all the now-familiar hums and roars and whirrs and rattles returned.

To get away from the pier in Port Huron, the ship reversed the maneuver it used to dock. The Freedom angled its stern out from the dock and into the Saint Claire River, where the downstream current from Lake Huron grabbed the ship. It pirouetted with the flow of the river until the bow pointed south, then started down the channel.

I missed the river transit and Detroit, having worked feverishly and then collapsed into the rack. When I walked onto the bridge this morning the ship was entering western Lake Erie in the channel as part of a column of merchant vessels, with big cargo carriers ahead and astern of us. The captain came on the 1MC a few minutes later to announce that we’d be firing up the turbines and making another “full CODAG” run across the lake to get to Cleveland.

The whine of the turbines filled the ship. The crew of the Freedom is still experimenting with the water depths at which it can enter high speed, because they affect how well the ship’s bow can plane up. So after the ship chopped a few times on our existing course towards the Cleveland, it turned into the wind, like a carrier, to get a slight boost for the semi-planing hull. The trick worked and the Freedom took off like a rocket.

As I write this the ship is making a right turn from running at 44 knots – over 50 miles per hour – with a 75-knot wind over the forecastle. We expect to make it to Cleveland within the hour.