Mostly because Les is awesome and I had a hell of a time hanging out with him in Pittsburgh.
But in this post over at Jay’s Les mentioned he served aboard the USS Ulysses S. Grant which led me to the Wikipedia page.
Go click over and look at the picture. Really neat shot, but left me with two HUGE questions.
Big #1, is one of those dudes you, Les?
and #2. What’s the point of having the sailors standing on the dive planes? Looks cool, but it seems sorta risky. I know its in sight of land, but from my own time offshore you learn pretty quick you do NOT want to go into the drink. Its one thing if you’re on a Boston Whaler that can turn on a dime, but when you’re on a Sub, or a Fishing boat towing gear, you might be in a drink for a while…and that’s if somebody sees you hit the drink!
Weer’d,
The guys out on the fairwater planes have harnesses on and can’t fall into the drink-at least that’s how it was done when I was in. They are just lookouts, something you need lots of in high traffic areas. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of room in the sail for bodies so you put the lookouts out on the planes.
Neat, thanks!
Hi Brother Beard! Thanks for the kind words. No, that’s not me on the Fairwater planes. My Maneuvering Watch Station was usually below, helping out the Quartermasters calculating any Set and Drift. Those of you out there who’ve ever had to go up the river in Charleston know how much fun that can be! As for that particular picture, that might have been shot in the early 60’s. It’s because you can read the Hull number. By the time I joined up, those were painted over to try and fool the Russkies into guessing which Sub was Going where. Oh, and Stretch was Right about the WW2 standards over at Jay’s. And my former Navy Sub Brother whom I just heard about (LCScotty) is also correct. But since the Navy has gone back to using Bow and Stern Planes, I wonder how crowded that Sailplane is getting?