Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

USS Philadelphia Homeward Bound

The Navy has released five pictures of USS Philadelphia (SSN 690) pulling into Souda Bay, Crete. To view the thumbnails, you can click here and type in "SSN 690" into the "Photo Search" tab in the upper left. You can also view the individual pics by clicking here, here, here, here, and here. From each image, you can then click on the hi-res versions of the pictures.

It looks like they did a pretty good job on the cosmetic repairs when they were in port in Bahrain after their collision last month; here is what she looked like then:



And here's how she looks now:



It's actually hard to see much damage. There's clearly some visible repair work that's been done to the starboard fairwater plane. I knew that the rudder had taken a beating, so I wanted to see how that looked. I blew up the "after" picture above to focus on the rudder, and here's what I got:



It looks like there's some missing paint, but I really couldn't tell much else. I'm sure they wouldn't have let her get underway, though, if the rudder wasn't fully functional.

Some interesting details can be gleaned from the pictures for non-submariners. In the "after" picture above (and here) you can see submarine linehandling in action on the bow. One sailor is throwing a "heavie" to the pier, another is wrapping the line around the cleat, and the capstan is raised. (As an aside, submarine linehandling is often very comical -- we don't do it too much, and it shows. As often as not, you end up with the "heavies" wrapped around some overhead line, or 5 or 6 Sailors scratching their heads trying to figure out how to double the lines.) Another photo shows the "shifting colors" ceremony -- as the colors are raised on the stick aft of the sail, the flag on the bridge is taken down, while all hands salute. This is done immediately after the ship is "moored" (all four lines on, but not necessarily finished being secured).

If someone smarter than me sees any visible damage remaining (for example in this picture, which shows the towed array housing) let me know.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was the Leading Seaman on a SSN, and was very prode of my deck seamanship(and also pretty damn good). Didn't know one brass balls that knew a dink about my topside and seamanship.

Mike Willis
576/590

10/19/2005 8:14 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Amen to 'Anymouse'! (as we used to put it). Back in my deck-ape Seaman Gang, we took great pride in our 'marlinspike seamanship'. Each of made up our own customized heavies and we knew how to use them. And on Scamp, under the illustrious A.J.M. Atkins, we got our butts reamed loudly and in public if we weren't smart about our linehandling. At the time, we got lots of experience because we were doing daily and weekly training ops. Maybe after a long patrol, some 'rust' might show, but not that I ever noticed.
- Flapper

10/19/2005 4:08 PM

 
Blogger Bubblehead said...

See, I told you my boat was famous!

10/20/2005 8:29 PM

 
Blogger Bubblehead said...

Re: the Philadelphia -- yep, that's the same boat. She was commissioned back in June 1977.

10/21/2005 12:09 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

love the title... wonder if the genius who posted this has any idea how little anyone was punished due to the reason of the accident....

flame flame flame, thats what the originator wanted i believe, and all he got was blah...

i find that funny..

but anyway, good job to those involved in the repairs and such.

4/01/2008 10:49 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

iI was on the "Philly pig, drilladelphia, Doug's wonder yacht.. picka name.." and yeah our linehandling was comical at best.. especially when the XO's wife is trying to give line orders from the pier

4/23/2008 10:01 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The title of this page was a favorite saying of a particular mmcs during my tour.... I wonder if that is where the page author got it from?

4/24/2008 6:21 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They used to have a replica of the Philly bell that went missing and a signed pic of Jimmy Buffett that someone stole in the mid 90s, did either of those get replaced? I also heard they're decomming it in 2 years. I'm kind of surprised no one's put any past initiations up on You Tube.

7/11/2008 2:11 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dunno.. I was ther in the mid 90's and I dont' remember either of them.. there was the "troll incident" but I don't remember the bell or the pic of jimmy buffet...

8/16/2008 1:55 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To the person who wrote that there was little punishment handed down after the accident, I can inform you that the captain was promptly yanked from the ship and given a desk job for the rest of his career. Is that punishment enough for you?

4/17/2011 1:58 PM

 
Anonymous Laurine said...

So, I do not really believe it will have effect.

8/25/2012 10:57 PM

 

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