Navy Story #28
Too Close to the Pier for Comfort
One thing about an "amphibious" ship in the Navy is that lots of interesting assignments come up. This situation was even more pronounced in the case of the USS Pensacola,
because she is a big ship with lots of space for carrying things. You can look at stories #3 and #27 to know that one of the interesting things that we carried was a research submarine!
But this story is about a jet airplane and a pier. These two items are not normally associated, but the USS Pensacola is a place where strange associations can occur!
The port (left) anchor also features in this story. Here is a picture of Pensacola's port anchor on the bottom of a drydock during one of Pensacola's maintenance times:
Prow and Anchor in Drydock
The port (left) anchor also features in this story. Here is a picture of Pensacola's port anchor on the bottom of a drydock during one of Pensacola's maintenance times:
Prow and Anchor in Drydock
I think the year was 1974 or so. One of the Navy's jet airplanes in South Carolina needed some repairs that could best be done at Jacksonville, Florida, so the Navy decided that
our ship would take the plane from South Carolina to Jacksonville. There is a McEntire Air National Guard Station near Columbia/Moorehead City that may be where the plane actually came from; I'm not sure.
Our trip to Charleston (the nearest port to Columbia) was uneventful, and so was the loading of the airplane onto Pensacola's helicopter deck. The trip from Charleston to Jacksonville
was uneventful, too. But when we were getting set to moor our ship to the pier at Jacksonville, things got interesting very quickly.
We had a normal approach to the pier, and even had the assistance of a tugboat on our port (left) bow (meaning that it was on the left, way up toward the front of the ship). The tugboat
became significant just a bit later.
We had the pier itself on the starboard (right) side of the ship. For some reason, when we got really close to the pier and the Captain ordered the engine room to reverse both engines,
the starboard (right) engine reversed a bit faster than did the port (left) engine, which made the bow (front) of the ship veer off to the right.
Picture this: the pier was on the right, and the ship was veering sharply to the right. The combination of events had us heading toward a collision with the pier. Not moving alongside
the pier, but toward it. Oops.
The Captain realized fairly quickly what was going on, so he went out to the "wing" of the bridge (a platform area outside the bridge, above the water, on both sides of the
bridge) and shouted down to the forecastle, where the anchor crews are always stationed and ready during an approach to a pier or an anchorage, to "Let go the port anchor!" This was a really good idea, except for
two things.
For one thing, the anchor on a large ship is also quite large and heavy. For another thing, do you remember that I said that we had a tugboat assisting us on our port bow? The Chief
Boatswain's Mate on the forecastle had the sense to look over the side of the ship before they dropped the port anchor, and it's a good thing he looked. The tugboat was directly underneath the anchor! So the Chief
leaned over and waved his arms to the tugboat captain to back off. He waved frantically. Finally, the tugboat captain saw him and reversed his own engines, just in time. The port anchor was let go, and it dutifully dropped
to the bottom of the harbor.
The Captain then ordered the Chief to tighten the anchor chain, and the anchor did its job superbly. It "bit" into the bottom of the harbor, and the tightened anchor chain
kept the bow of the ship from swinging farther to starboard into the pier.
Amazingly, the Captain had acted quickly enough, and the Chief had reacted quickly enough, even with his waving off of the tugboat, to stop our starboard veering just a few feet short
of our plowing into the pier. Whew! What a close call!
Well, after we raised and stowed the anchor, and were normally moored to the pier, we did deliver the plane. Mission accomplished! And a potential disaster averted!
Again, I say that an experienced Captain is invaluable on a Navy ship. And so is an experienced Chief Petty Officer!