SUBMARINEMUSEUMS.ORG Forum
General Boards => Submarine Related Chatter => School of the Boat => Topic started by: Darrin on March 04, 2009, 05:50:21 PM
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Ok folks it looks like there is 1 more block of instruction that we all can participate in, Torsk doesn't have her origional pitometer log anymore so I will learn right along with you.. EVERYONE is encouraged to get involved in this one to include other School of the Boat instructors :coolsmiley:
First question: what does it do and where is it located?
Good luck all
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The pitometer log is in the forward torpedo room starboard aft corner. It is retractable so you don't ram it into the bottom when entering port. 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. Terry
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You are on the mark there Terry,
Now how does the underwater log tell you how many miles that you have traveled in your journey???
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The way it provides distance traveled seems rather complicated, but the below link is to the description of operation in the manual:
The Fleet Type Submarine Online
Submarine Underwater Log Systems
http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/log/chap18.htm#18B (http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/log/chap18.htm#18B)
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Thanks Dave, Welcome aboard also if I haven't said so already. It has and always will be a pain to teach how a submarine or any vessel can tell how many miles it has truly gone, granted you can cheat and calculate off of the charts the distance everytime you go out on a run and you can also you how many miles are shown that the screws have pushed the boat thru..
The reason why I have asked this question was because there was a boat that came home under "sail" once because it ran out of gas and ran nearly out of battery power, while it was in safe waters around Hawaii (IF I remember correctly) it was still a unique thing to read about.
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It may seem strange but Darrin can actually remember facts and not just some wild sea story.
During a search for the sea-going tug Conestoga (AT-54) in May 1921. R-14 (SS-91) ran out of fuel southeast of Hawaii. Sails were made from blankets and mattresses, and the submarine arrived at Hilo on 15 May after 5 days under sail.
Here is a link to the story about the search for he missing tug: http://www.pa-roots.com/lancaster/tales/ussconestoga.html
NIce memory Darrin :coolsmiley:
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Thanks John,
While I could remember the story I couldn't place the name of the boat and why she ran out of fuel, the story of that happening is in the book "SUBMARINE STORIES" and I am sure in many many more books as a lessons learned and how ingenious our submarine crews can get to bring their boat home
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I found it interesting that it was one of the crewmen that suggested sails. :2funny:
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Man they would have been screwed being at sea without the ability to dive. But then again, just drifting isn't too great either.
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Oh! They could dive. Manually open vents. blow tanks - it would be harder and not all that safe - but they could dive! 8)
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Well Lance,
there have been a number of boats that while being submarines were not allowed to dive anymore while coming home from a deployment.. The last was the USS San Francisco (SSN 711) and that was because of her accident where she hit a uncharted mountain on a flank bell, once the temp bow was placed on her she went from GUAM to Bremerton, Wa on the surface without the ability to dive.. Then there were the boats that got depth charged so badly during the war that they were not allowed to dive once they returned home due to being so badly damaged.
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Oh yeah, of course. That would be a tight situation, being in a submarine that wasn't safe to dive.
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Lance I have to point out that up until the nuclear submarine all submarines spent a lot of time on the surface. Submarines could only remain submerged as long as they had adaquite battery power. They were made to ride out conditions on the surface.
Many boats during storms would ride the surface because it was a lot easier (except to the tossing around we got) to remain surfaced than try to surface during a storm. Yes some boats did remain submerged. But they could only last so long.
WWII patrols were spent with much of the night time on the surface to charge batteries and to steam to other patrol areas. At sunrise they would submarge to remain hidden.
With nuclear submarines that all changed. There was now never a reason to surface until the end of a patrol and you were back home.
The inability of a submarine to submerge takes a lot of the purpose of the submarine away. It's still rather safe to remain sufaced (unless in a war). USS San Francisco was a prime example. Baddly damaged that boat made it back to a port.
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The crew of the San Fran did a job that is still unbelievable to those whom have ridden 688's due to the amount of damage to her bow and having served on her it was horrific to see my former boat coming in hull down instead of hull up especially knowing that they were running the low pressure blower and then the diesel to continually pump air in to what remained of the forward balast tanks. When the pictures of her in the drydock emerged I was shocked and in AWE of the crew that did the impossible, it reminded me of seeing pics of the Growler with her bow crushed nearly 90 degrees to port and they still brought her home (Capt Gilmore gave his final order to "TAKE HER DOWN" and shut the hatch knowing that he couldn't make it below) while the tanks are layed out differently between the classes it showed that todays submariners can still do the impossible in conditions that would appear to be no way out.
Lance with the Skipjack class and the Albacore the rules really changed about how submarines operated, with previous hull designs they were designed to ride on the surface and with the above mentioned classes we were ment to stay underwater and not surface unless we were coming in and out of port and I will be more then happy to tell you that riding a 688 in a typhoon is NOT a nice place to be however I would rather be underwater and getting tossed around then being on the surface and being thrown like a rag doll around.. IF you would like to see basicly what the San Fran went through once she got on the surface fill a water bottle half to 3/4 of the way full of water and then put in your tub and then create a gentle sea state by gently moving the water around in your tub creating small waves to the ever so violent hurricane like waves in the tub.
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::) Lance takes baths? :crazy2: What's worse is somehow Darrin you know this fact? LOL
I've been at sea during two hurricanes on the Picuda and we had to spend our time on the surface trying to stay outside of the storms. What a ride! I can almost say I know what it would have been like in an old wooden frigate in the 1800's.
And like Darrin said, I've taken some monster rollers in the North Atlantic in an SSBN. Stuff flying everywhere until we finally pull the plug and ahead flank to calmer waters. SSBN's need to be able to launch within x minutes and rolling heavy prevents you from launching your birds.
I too marvel at what the crew of the San Francisco pulled off. :smitten:
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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.
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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.
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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 ....
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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.
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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
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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 :smitten:
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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
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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.