Messages

1

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: welding equipment

« on: February 02, 2018, 11:34:23 AM »

For what its worth, I remember from the U-505 tour booklet from 40 years ago that they had the capability for arc-welding via equipment in the motor room.

Jay Boggess

2

Website Updates and Off-Topic Discussion / Re: Merry Christmas

« on: December 29, 2015, 04:08:02 PM »

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!!

(I'm reading the forum)

Jay Boggess

3

Website Updates and Off-Topic Discussion / Re: Crew listings

« on: March 03, 2015, 10:32:17 AM »

Another possibility is Charles Hinman, the keeper of the OnEternalPatrol website at the Bowfin in Hawaii.  I know he has his list of lost submariners, so he might be a source for your quest.  His email is:

info@OnEternalPatrol.com

and the website is:

http://www.oneternalpatrol.com/

Good Luck!

Jay Boggess

4

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Funniest Things / Best Moments

« on: August 26, 2014, 09:34:23 PM »

My wife understands my submarine fascination, but seldom indulges it with me (i.e. she's content to remain ashore while I explore). When I finally got her inside her first sub (Cavalla, pre-hurricane) we started in the forward torpedo room, thru the fwd battery, thru the control room, thru the after battery, thru the fwd engine room, thru the after engine room, AND THEN she saw the electrical cubicle thru the after engine room hatch.  Her eyes got wide and she said she announced she wanted to turn back!  "Well," I replied,  "it's either make it around the cubicle or go back thru those 5 hatches!"  She made it to the after torpedo room, but I don't think she's been in another sub...

5

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Introductory Questions for Museum Staff

« on: August 12, 2014, 09:59:15 AM »

"Perhaps I’m just incredibly naïve, but can someone explain the apparent and unfortunately common vendetta some museum staff has against volunteers?"

Here is something with museums but not submarines but sorta on volunteers vs management.  At Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI ten years ago, they had this bartender at the Eagle Tavern, which was a preserved 1830's Michigan roadhouse.  You could get a drink there, and the bartender would talk to you like it was 1850.  You'd tell him where you were from and he'd tell you how long it would take you to travel home via 1850's transportation.  If you asked him if you could pay by credit card, he'd say "Oh yes, we have a telegraph. We will wire your bank and make sure you have the money..."   A throughly entertaining and enjoyable experience.

Well after about 2-3 years, by this time "Silas" even had a fan club and newsletter, Greenfield Village management must have been feeling threatened or something, as they came up with some dumb reason to fire him....

Perhaps when volunteers start looking too good and getting too much done, that's when "paid" management must feel they must step in...

Jay Boggess

6

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Submarine Film Festival

« on: June 06, 2014, 10:13:07 AM »

I thought of two additional Fleet Boat movies.  "Operation Pacific" (1951) where John Wayne solves the Mk14 torpedo exploder problem.  The other is "Destination Tokyo" (1943) where Cary Grant penetrates Tokyo Bay to help guide the Doolittle Raiders to their targets.  "DT" is FULL of jingoistic propaganda (to be expected since it was made during the war), but was drawn partly on some of the exploits of Silversides, including the famous appendicitis operation on the wardroom table.  I especially remember a scene where the crew fishes out a "dirty Jap" pilot, who proceeds to stab one of the sailors trying to get him aboard.  More death ensues.  When its all over, Capt Cary Grant is consoling one of the sailors with a line of "that Jap pilot had been trained since he was a little boy to stab someone in the back"...

Jay Boggess 

7

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Submarine Film Festival

« on: May 30, 2014, 10:59:26 AM »

I've never seen a sub film festival, but can certainly suggest a few movies - some directly sub-related, some tangentially, some to stay FAR FAR AWAY from.

Run Silent, Run Deep - Clarke Gable and Burt Lancaster - great WWII fleet boat scenes, good drama, some glimpses into life among the crew.

Das Boot - Best U-Boat movie around.  Hard to watch, the crew goes thru so, so much in 2 1/2 hours of submarine claustrophobia.

U-571 - STAY AWAY! That's all I'll say. Instead see:

Enigma - Fictionalized life of Bletchley Park and British code breaking of the German Enigma machine, especially with regard to breaking the "Shark" U-boat cipher.  Some surfaced U-boat scenes.

Ice Station Zebra - Said to be Howard Hughes favorite film - Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoonan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown all on a nuclear submarine all trying to get a Russian spy satellite landed near the North Pole. 

The Hunt for Red October - Sean Connery and VERY YOUNG Alex Baldwin - my ex-navy nukes I work with can find a few things terribly wrong with it, but its awfully entertaining.  Besides, Tim Curry of The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing a Russian doctor???  Amazing!

Finally, in War and Remembrance there are many scenes of Pacific Fleet subs throughout the gazillion-part mini-series.  They used Bowfin out of Hawaii in the filming.

Jay Boggess

8

Submarine Related Chatter / Re: Engine room noise level

« on: January 30, 2014, 11:19:33 AM »

I've only heard submarine diesels running once - on Silversides back in 1986 or 7 for a Memorial Day event.  They had two of their F-M's idling unloaded at about 400 rpm.  BUT I've heard many, many locomotive diesels at all sorts of horsepowers and engine rpm's from inside and outside the locomotive body.  The Silversides were strangely not nearly as obnoxious and loud as a locomotive diesel.

Because submarine diesels are spinning DC generators, there is no syncing as such.  Enclosed is the engine load graph for the Cleveland Diesel 16-248 engines on Bowfin.  You can see there is a desired "sweet-spot" loading band from low engine rpm to high rpm.   At a particular rpm, the engine room noise will have a certain pitch, but (from my locomotive experience) the tone at the same engine rpm will likely change and probably grow louder as the engine load increases.

You can find the firing order of an F-M diesel  on page 80 of  Rich Pekelney's Fleetsub manuals (http://www.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/diesel/chap3.htm) but for the 9-cylinder, it is 1-9-2-7-4-5-6-3-8 for left hand rotation and 1-8-3-6-5-4-7-2-9 for right had rotation.

Except for maybe Rich Pekelney on his foreign sub field trips, I suspect no one has heard one of these engines at full speed / full power for a long, long time, if ever...

jay b.

9

New Member Introductions / Old Lurker, New Member

« on: January 29, 2014, 02:54:26 PM »

Hi - My name's Jay Boggess and I've never been in the Navy but have been fascinated by submarines since first seeing Cod back in 1977.  Since then I've lived in Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Chicago (saw and knew folks who worked on Silversides before she left for Muskegon), Anchorage, Alaska, Grand Coulee Washington and now settled in Denver Colorado.  I was good friends with John Fakan before he passed and Paul Farace knows me.    I spent nearly 28 years working on diesel locomotives at EMD and the Alaska Railroad, so diesel subs are cool because a) they're a lot LIKE diesel locomotives and b) they are NOT diesel locomotives.  When Rich Pekelney first put The Fleet Submarine manuals up on the web, I cheerfully send him typo corrections as I read thru them all (well, not quite all - never have read the periscope manual...).

I've been to many of fleet boat museums - some which may not be around too much longer ( - Ling & Clamagore) but still need to make it to a few more (Razorback, Drum & Torsk come to mind).  From my days at EMD, I have some info on Cleveland Diesel engines and have studied sub electrical propulsion systems extensively. 

Anyway glad to be aboard here.

jay b.