Messages

1

Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Shipboard Firefighting on Museum Submarines

« on: May 07, 2009, 09:12:25 PM »

Fallen by the wayside.  However, I'm getting things pulled back together again, hopefully I will get that new draft done.  It may take a few of those round tuit things.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Where money in USSVI is going. Not to Museum boats!!!

« on: May 07, 2009, 09:09:59 PM »

Let me make a humble suggestion that the purpose of the USSVI is not now and probably never will be to support museum ships.  I doubt it even ranks in the top 5 priorities of the organization.  I'll go a step further and say "nor should it".

50,000 is a significant chunk of change, but its not in the realm of what these boats need and if you start spending it, you won't get very far with it.  Leave it in the scholarship area, its something the members gain some benefit from.  It is their money and their club and that they have a small program to help out boats is great.  I should say our club since I'm a member. 

Don't look to the USSVI for significant amounts of money.  This is the old guys club where they can get together once in a while and talk about the times when they were steely eyed killers of the deep.  And they remember those who can't sit around with them because of the hazards of war or the sea. 

If you really want to set a ship up to last a very long time, its going to take a lot of money.  You best bet is to get your Congressman to bend the rules and throw you a million or two for a drydocking and refurb.  Its chump change to them and despite the agreement of "no cost to the government", it shouldn't be too difficult to get them to see the patriotic advantage at the next election and spend the money anyway.  Better that than how its been spent.  They get to give work to shipyard workers, please veterans and maintain a naval heritage.  What more could they ask for?  The trick is to identify a lobbying organization to push it, but that takes money in the first place.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Shipboard Firefighting on Museum Submarines

« on: November 24, 2008, 10:06:30 AM »

Let me take these suggestions and make some updates.  I'll repost when I can.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Shipboard Firefighting on Museum Submarines

« on: November 22, 2008, 10:14:28 PM »

I have almost finished the first draft on "Shipboard Fire-Fighting on Museum Submarines".  Rather than try to hash out things myself, I'd like to ask for community input on how to finish this document.  To that end, I'm posting the draft version here. 

If you'd like to, please review and post comments here.  When posting, please reference a section number and your comments.  I will periodically incorporate the comments and repost.

The purpose of this document is to spark thought and provide a rough guide for each boat to develop it's own fire plans.

Have at it

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: So who has looked in their chain locker?

« on: November 10, 2008, 12:10:47 PM »

Your chain is a little rusty there Paul.

Oh boy.  I think I'm going to leave that one alone.

But, good point Paul. Dex once wrote a piece called "Rust never sleeps".  Its no good to slap a coat of pretty paint over it and ignore the rust on the other side.  Multiple deck replacement projects, the current state of Batfish....these boats are slowly rusting away where we can't see or don't look at them.

Brian

6

School of the Boat / Re: School of the Boat - Emergencies (1 November 2008)

« on: November 06, 2008, 02:51:36 PM »

You are diving, therefore the boat does have negative buoyancy, also remember that the boat is being driven down by the angle of the bow and stern planes, plus the turns for all ahead full.  As long as the boat has a negative buoyancy it will go down.  By filling the MBT's your boat should be in a neutral buoyancy (maybe a bit heavier).

That's where I don't get it.  If a vent was stuck causing a list, the list would not become apparent at deep depth, it should have been throughout the dive.  The boat would be light aft and take a deeper angle, but if properly trimmed, it should be positively boyant with an a stuck vent and become nearly neutral when the #6 MBT is vented.  I don't have the math on it, but my gut feeling is that if the bouyancy from the tank is stronger than the plane's ability to control the angle, then it won't be overcome by the screws.  I could be wrong on that, its just a gut feeling.

The angle should happen right away, the dive is slower and the boat is harder to get down.

Brian

7

School of the Boat / Re: School of the Boat - Emergencies (1 November 2008)

« on: November 05, 2008, 01:07:03 PM »

It sounds like the answer was a stuck vent.  I'm not 100% convinced that more air in an MBT would make you go down faster...I'd need to have that explained in more detail why.

The big picture as I saw it - you don't want to go up (enemy plane) or down (briny deep).  Question - are you sinking or driving yourself down?

Slow down - backing bell for...10 seconds? then ahead at slow speed.  Monitor depth as you do, if the depth change accelerates, blow tanks and go faster ahead because you're heavy and sinking.  If the depth change slows down, you're driving yourself down due to something with the planes not being right.

If you're heavy, why?
tanks not at expected levels or have changed since last trim dive.
flooding in the FTR
I can't think of another source of weight that would cause that much heaviness forward.

If you're driving yourself down, why?
bow planes not actually rigged correctly.
Something else?

Remember that at this point you're on batteries and you don't have nuke style reaction ability on answering bells.  If you ring up all back emergency on the batteries for too long, you're going to be surfacing again because your batteries are going to run down real fast.

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Submarine Related Chatter / Re: Why did WWII subs stay on surface in storms?

« on: October 29, 2008, 10:39:37 AM »

Two additional points - I understood that fleet boats didn't submerge during a storm because once submerged, the storm could get too bad for them to surface.  As I think about that now, it seems silly, but perhaps there's something in the "coming to the surface" procedure that is dangerous to the ship in a high sea state?  Or the worry that once down you might not be able to come up if the storm gets worse, but you can always submerge as a last resort if the storm gets really bad.

In a bad storm, I imaging it is extremely difficult to accurately fire a gun from a rolling and pitching ship at a rolling and pitching ship, even with stabilization equipment.  A hit becomes much less likely, but not an impossibility.  But just doing the engagement might be outside the capabilities of the crew of the other ship.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

« on: October 16, 2008, 09:09:16 AM »

Perhaps a repeater system with a flashing emergency light topside?  It would be more expensive to outfit.

As to CO2 / CO detectors, I don't think they're necessary.  You do need to consider gas-safe reentry procedures if there is a fire.  How long will it take for ventilation method X to change out the air, how will you sample for gases, etc.  On modern boats, they use hand held units for sampling.  Does anyone know a civilian source?

I am working all this into a document that I'll publish in a few weeks.  So far I'm at 10 pages with quite a bit left to fill in.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

« on: October 14, 2008, 04:17:15 PM »

The extinguishers are in plain sight and should be, there are only so many concessions that should be made for history. You have to remember that the majority of people on board at any time haven't a clue as to where they are, which way is out or how to fight a fire. We have had boy scouts set of the extinguishers on the boat and the Battleship, those packs have not been invited back.

I think that's a different question - Is it a fire extinguisher, a historic artifact or both?  Each boat will have its own answer.  Personally, I like the idea of using modern fire extinguishers, but paint them bright orange, place them out of the way and train on where they are.  Leave artificats alone.

Brian

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New Member Introductions / Re: Another Torsk Bandit and TM show's up to the board

« on: October 13, 2008, 08:58:25 AM »

Absolutely true, you can never have enough torpedomen to abuse!   

Careful there chief.  I have a screwdriver and plenty of sockets to stick it in....

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: FIRE SUPPRESSION SYSTEM

« on: October 10, 2008, 02:20:08 PM »

Thanks guys!

Hey - you know what might be a good idea - what if we all created a Basic Fire Control Plan based on our experiences with our boats?  This way, perhaps all of the subs could benefit in some way and at the very least have a skeleton plan to work with for heir particular needs.

I think this is a fantastic idea, especially given that we know that fire/flooding casualties have occured on museum ships.  A checklist on the proper things that need to get done with discussion would be a good start.  I'm way overbooked for the next few weeks, but I'll see what I can pull together from this discussion.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Lessons learned on strip ships and how to get in

« on: October 10, 2008, 11:22:05 AM »

I'm late getting in on this list, but had one thing to take (or leave behind) that is pretty important - take reasonable expectations.  You might be in good shape, but your volunteers may be 40 year old computer jocks whose exercise consists of moving their hand from the keyboard to the mouse.  There will be things you can't do and the conditions on the ships can be absolutely brutal.  Use reasonable judgement on what is possible.

On our last trip, we found 2 pallets of 5" handling shells (all bronze), perfect for the museum's CG Cutter Taney.  Unfortunately, they weighed about 50 pounds each and there was no way we were moving 200 (5 tons) of them up from the hold.  On this same trip, we had a crew working in a superstructure radio room with no ventilation in 120+ heat.  Everyone stuck it out and we got a lot of great antique radio equipment out, but to say it was miserable is a gross understatement.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: Proposed gathering of SubMuseum.org folks at COD this fall...

« on: October 10, 2008, 11:10:48 AM »

Back to the original question - Paul, I could support a get together on Cod, or on any other boat.  There are no better or worse weekends for me other than the obvious ones.  There's a fair number of "what if" questions that would make great fantail conversation.

Brian

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Museum Submarine Discussion / Re: How To Keep Volunteers

« on: October 09, 2008, 01:26:52 PM »

Adding my $.02. 

My main experience is with Torsk.  I think one of the reasons that group works is that there's a fair amount of give and take.  I know when I go up, I try to split my work - something I want to do (like rebulding blow and vent valves) and something that needs to get done.  Since I'm doing something I enjoy, I'm happy to do something that I don't necessarily enjoy (like painting, chipping rust, cleaning the dirt/oil/rust sludge out of the bilge).

The other part is the people, just like anywhere else.  I actually like most of these guys.

Its not the museum management.  Torsk maintained its group through good museum management, the current OUTSTANDING museum management....and management from the past that everyone wished was better.  Regardless of the level of support or the relationship with the museum, the group held together.

It also helps when you're in a large metropolitan area like Baltimore and can find enough of us crazy people who actually LIKE being on a boat....

Brian