Friday, December 02, 2011

USS North Carolina Deploys

USS North Carolina (SSN 777) departed on her maiden WestPac yesterday. Here's a picture:


Do you have any good stories from your first deployment?

29 comments:

  1. Well, on my first deployment, our boat had a small incident with a tanker. The sub was the Philadelphia, and it was September 2005.

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  2. My first deployment ended when my boat had a fateful encounter with a freighter and a rapid transit back to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

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  3. I remember when we left San Diego and had to turn around due to a certain scope 'mysteriously' raising up while going ahead flank. Good thing another boat and the tender was inport.

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  4. Sonar tech died while on watch, just after I had been relieved as Officer of the Deck. Pretty terrible experience. Pulled us off station and back to home.

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  5. All I remember from my first deployment is a piping tab...lol

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  6. We scrammed the reacotr twice in one week -- accidently :)

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  7. A clueless nub YN standing watch in sonar started crying when there was a torpedo in the water.

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  8. We were the "electric rabbit" in a MK45 torpedo exercise with another SSN.

    One of our off-watch nuc EM2(SS)s was in his rack when the fish struck aft - hard enough to be audible everywhere.

    The EM had to be tranquilized, and upon return to port was immediately hospitalized and stricken from boats.

    It was pointed out to the crew that the a large indentation on
    our starboard after section had been exactly outboard of the guy's rack.

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  9. Getting my dolphins in Subic Bay...well, for those who have been there, you can imagine the rest! And for those who haven't...what a shame!

    Jim C.
    Ret. ANAV

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  10. Not my first, but on my second...
    George Washington and Nissho Maru - look it up.

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  11. Med Run during Spring and Summer. Lot's of drinking and topless beaches.

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  12. As a Qual rider (did), 1st 640 class Med port call (Naples) in the middle of a deployment in years. My LPO's in the Shipyard tack'ed them on extra well.

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  13. Very boring deployment. The only excitement was when someone accidentally sounded GQ.

    It may have been the fastest "manned and ready" ever.

    We did get "imminent danger" pay, which I have not heard of before nor since.

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  14. First underway (not deployment) was taking a boat out of PSNS refueling overhaul on sea trials. Pretty eye opening after seeing that thing with many large hull cuts when initially reporting.

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  15. None of my three WestPacs in the late 80s/early 90s were real WestPacs. They were the leave, submerge, return and surface variety.

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  16. I was on the USS Hampton... nuff said

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  17. submarines once...12/03/2011 6:14 PM

    Pusan, Texas Street early 70's-and obviously lived through it...What an "Adult Disneyland"!

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  18. Med run in mid 80's sitting off
    the coast of libya in the med, russian oiler trying to run us aground in naples, the real reason a helm was named "Tango Timmy" after everybody was thrown out of their racks, flooding the diesel twice in a week, R-11 refrigerant rupture with a emergency blow cause the diesel wouldn't start, scrams that they couldn't find the reason for.
    That was fun. I got to shim rods
    as an a'gangr.

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  19. Speaking of the "George Washington and Nissho Maru"

    Am just a skimmer, but it seems that an upward facing sonar transponder might help stop these kind of incidents. Be a cheap investment.

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  20. Transducer?

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  21. It's a skimmer comment, LOL! Naw, BIG Navy would never think of an upward facing transducer. Mebbe that transponder will work better?


    hagar

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  22. "Mebbe that transponder will work better?"

    FP concerns aside, on the surface an AIS transponder does work well.

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  23. One random day on my first 'Pac, playing with skimmers, next thing you know we're doing 20-plus down angle, less than 4 kts at a standard bell, going through 700 feet and the COW can't get the trim pump started.

    Ah, good times.

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  24. 1962 on SS-348. Drank my dolphins in the Starlight bar in submarine alley Yokosuka. 54 day spec op without showers. Exercise mine plant in Buckner Bay Okinawa.

    Keep a zero bubble..........

    DBFTMC(SS)USNRET

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  25. That's funny...we did a MINEX in the same place 24 years later on an SSN.

    Jim C.
    Retired ANAV

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  26. Excellent work! Thanks for sharing.

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  27. Hawkbill, 1987. Pattaya Beach Thailand. Can you say VIP Massage Parlor and blow up mattress. Good Times. Can't believe we made it out alive. Left alot of crying honey's on the beach when we got back underway.

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  28. "Left alot of crying honey's on the beach when we got back underway."

    That's because they really wanted you....to give them more money!

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  29. I am late to the game, but we had four beer days on my first med cruise. Then we pulled into Bahrain and drank more beer in the Desert Dome.

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