Caryn
and the crew of Monomoy 1. Getting ready to leave the dock.Week 12
Alright, so I'm writing this nearly two months after it happened, but I wanted to finish putting up pictures for the rest of BOTC. Week 12 included a lot of survival boat training. We learned how to lower lifeboats off big davit systems, as well as fast rescue boats from the King's Pointer. I think fun was had by all though, when we went rowing in the Monomoy's. These are large wooden lifeboats, like they had on the Titanic basically. With several past crew team members, we figured it would be easy as long as we all rowed together. Well, things were going well at first. We had a little bit of trouble keeping in sync, but we were able to get out of the harbor just fine. Well, then many of us (may be speaking for myself here, but I think it was felt by others too) found out just how out of shape we were. Those oars are heavy, as well as very awkward to use. I remember the instructor in our boat telling us how well we were doing, so much better than the midshipmen at the academy....and then regretting his words when 2 minutes later, one of the rower's oars came out of the oar lock and he went flying into the person behind him (ahem...me) landing on her feet, while simultaneously letting go of his oar, which of course floated away from the boat rather quickly. This created a great opportunity for a man overboard drill, where several circles were done before we made it to the floating oar. Several minutes later, another person lost control of their oar, but this time keeping it in the boat. Another look back at our instructor, and he was shaking his head muttering, "I spoke too soon." Anyway, as you can imagine, there was much laughter during the two days of rowing class. I'm very thankful that none of the NOAA ships have these type of boats anymore. Enjoy the pictures.
Quote of the week: "Back water as you see fit."
Caryn
and the crew of Monomoy 1. Getting ready to leave the dock.
Justin in control.
Look at that....all the oars in sync.
Tim
making a turn. One of the many circles we did while rowing around.
At least, we're all staying in our seats this time (ahem....Ryan).
Here's
the crew of Monomoy 2. Look at all those smiles. Must be the
beginning of the day.
Going
down?! Marc and Josh being lowered in the King's Pointer fast rescue boat.
Caryn,
Phoebe, Ryan and Tim getting a ride in the FRB.
Meg
coming back up out of the water in the FRB.
Here's
a good group shot with LCDR Lynch. This was a cool day, as a USCG
helicopter flew onto the USSM Academy so we could have a look inside and then
went with us out in the bay and practiced lowering a basket onto the back of one
to the Academy's bigger powerboats. Awesome experience. I have now
seen this done from the water and from a boat. Cool thing to watch, hope I
never have to experience it in real life though.
Meg taking
a short nap. That's me behind her laughing as Caryn took the picture.
Hehe!!
Deploying the covered lifeboat. This was cool to ride back up in. Sucked to be the person who had to crank it in manually the last few feet. We all had to do it at least once.
Then we all got to have a turn at driving the covered lifeboat. I guess they wanted us to experience what it would feel like to be in one of these boats for a while. Not bad, except the steering is a little squirrelly.
Lastly, we also practiced some towing techniques along side the FRB's as well as behind the FRB's.