Stranded on a sub in the Chesapeake Bay (updated)
October 26th, 2009 | Life at Sea Maritime operations Naval Academy Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing
Visitors spent a sunny afternoon stranded topside on the fast attack sub Annapolis when the Navy's boats to ferry them to shore broke down // Lt. Patrick Evans/ Navy
ABOARD THE FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE ANNAPOLIS – After a pleasant but brief visit to this sleek black shark, lurking incongruously amid the sails gliding across the shimmering Chesapeake Bay, it was time to leave.
The Annapolis’ skipper, Capt. Mike Holland, said our launch would be arriving any moment — plus Scoop Deck had asked to see the ship’s Vertical Launch System tubes in the bow — so we climbed up the ladder forward of the conn and examined them for a few moments in the clear, but chilly, Maryland sunshine. It was just after 12:30. After several more minutes of conversation on the sub’s bow, our boat still hadn’t arrived.
The Annapolis’ weapons officer, Lt. Cmdr. Howard Craig, popped up through the hatch and presented himself to Holland. Holland asked whether a boat would, in fact, be coming to ferry off two reporters, two Navy public affairs officers, and about 50 or 60 other visitors who were milling topside on the Annapolis and on a barge moored on the sub’s starboard side, set up to make it easier for visitors to get on and off the launches running from the sub to the Yard.
There were two launches — USNA 1 and 2 — circulating, Craig said. But: “Sir, one of the launches is D.I.W.; the other one is operational, sir.”
D.I.W.? Dead in the water. So we waited.
It was the most luxurious stranding in maritime history. The bay lapped against the Annapolis’ anechoic tiles, designed to absorb the energy from an active sonar ping. Traffic crossed the Bay Bridge, which filled the horizon like an iron ribbon several miles dead astern. A behemoth car carrier was anchored several miles off our port bow; a bulk cargo ship was riding high east of the channel at anchor off the port beam; the occasional freighter bound south from Baltimore cruised under the bridge and passed us. Dozens of sails wafted like goose quills in every direction over the bay. But we were still stranded.
The channel and the middle of the bay was just deep enough to accommodate the 7,000-ton Annapolis, which drew about 32 feet of water anchored on the surface. Another thousand feet west, we learned, and the sub could go aground.
At shortly after 1, the crew of the Annapolis and its milling passengers sighted one of the Navy launches off the starboard beam, churning toward us behind a good white bow wave. At last! Then the launch slowed. Then it stopped, still about 500 yards distant. By 1:20, according to Scoop Deck’s wristwatch, the boat had dropped its anchor.
Both the Navy’s ferries for taking passengers from Annapolis to the Annapolis and back were stranded in the bay, their engines dead. As the sub’s crew explained the situation, people aboard the submarine and its passenger literage barge began to sit down on the deck.
At 2:05, crew members from the Annapolis’ galley brought around snacks for top side castaways — they offered apples and oranges; Pop-Tarts and granola bars; and a selection of candy bars that did great credit to the ship’s supply department. Soon dozens of orange peels and apple cores were bobbing in the water around the submarine.
At 2:10, Lt. Patrick Evans, a spokesman for Submarine Group 2, read the day’s NFL scores off his iPhone. Naval Academy spokeswoman Judy Campbell expressed dissatisfaction that the Houston Texans were beating her beloved San Francisco 49ers.
At least, it was agreed, we weren’t on one of the two launches stuck in the bay. If we needed to use the heads, they were available, plus we were all munching on submarine snacks. And at least we were all stuck on a calm, pleasant afternoon, not in the monsoons from the day before. But we were still stuck.
Then, just like Vice Adm. David Beatty’s battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight, the Navy rode to the rescue. One of the Naval Academy’s yard patrol boats, which midshipmen use to practice seamanship, appeared in the crowded bay. In short order, YP 683 pulled alongside the stranded launch USNA 1 and took aboard what was doubtless a load of angry, thirsty passengers. Our hearts leapt as it drew closer to the Annapolis, but then it began a slow left turn back toward the Yard. Having rescued the passengers of both USNA 1 and 2, YP 683 had no space for the people marooned on the Annapolis. They began to sit back down.
But what’s this? Another small craft appeared on its way from Annapolis, making good speed across the bay. It was Naval Academy Superintendent Vice. Adm. Jeffrey Fowler’s “command gig,” and, we learned, it could take a select few people back to shore.
“Right now I’d like the media to get off, so they can get a nice headline,” Holland told the crowd, which burst into laughter.
At 2:42, Scoop Deck piled into Fowler’s gig, which cast off and cut a long right turn away from the Annapolis and made for the Yard. At 2:43 the gig passed USNA 2, sputtering on its way back to its dock. At 2:55 the gig passed YP 683 chugging with its decks full of passengers. At 3:05, Scoop Deck stepped back onto the Naval Academy campus and made for the City Dock, in desperate need of lunch.
Comments
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Cap'n Bill Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 7:54 amLet’s face the facts. Too much liberty, too little seamanship practice…these things happen. At least there is no mention of rain or snow.
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Tony Says:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:49 amGreat stuff, always fun to see the even the best navies in the world having a bad hair day. Something similar happened to me one on the Red Funnel ferry to the Isle of Wight, which is why I tend to prefer Wightlink.