"Victory At Sea"

sEaStories

11-23 Oct 72 freed icebound cutter Edisto and USS Mizar and towed the damaged cutter to Reykjavik, Iceland;
http://laesser.11net.com/cutters/winds/south.html
and
http://laesser.11net.com/cutters/winds/edisto.html

It's funny how a picture can bring back memories.
I had the USNS Hayes on two occasions, the first occasion when it was new, and we were doing underwater sound studies with the USNS Mizar off the West Coast of Greenland near 80�N. The game plan was for the Mizar to venture into the pack ice a few miles, and Hayes would stay out in open water reading, and measuring the sounds generated by Mizar.
The weather was perfect, though it was getting into fall. We drifted around outside the ice for a day or so while we waited for the USCGC Edisto, and Southwind to arrive.
The Edisto arrived first, and hung out with us for a day or so, and then, held up by head seas, the Southwind arrived.
I guess Southwind was designated "SOPA", so it was aboard her we had a "conference". It was then I met the skipper of the Southwind, who, a seemingly joyful character tried to impress on us how he "plowed full ahead" through heavy head seas to keep the schedule. He needn't have mentioned it, as we could see the flattened bow rails.
The game plan was that Southwind, and Edisto would escort Mizar into the ice, which was actually broken pack, about five feet in thickness, but being broken was no real challenge, the Mizar, being ice strengthened herself, and built for Arctic work could have managed alone, though not as readily...a little short on horse power.
The "conference" ended, everyone returned to their ships, and the three ships went into the ice, the Hayes lying just clear. Before we positioned ourselves, and while the others were slowly navigating the ice, I put the catamaran's ( the Hayes is a catamaran ) two bows into the ice, straddling a hummocked patch that extended well above foredecks, for a photo op. Everyone got their pictures, and I backed off, and we took up position lowering our hydrophones.
It was during that photo op I realized the Hayes would never enter the ice as long as I was there, the vulnerablility of the controlable pitched propellors to ice funneled down between the hulls was too real, let alone the accessablility of the cross structure to hummoched ice.
One of my favorite "toys" was the weather facsimile machine mounted in the chart room. Though the Radio Officer copied Fleet Weather, I liked running off the maps put out by Halifax Radio - CFH ( I think ). It was the large weather fax machines of the day, this one not an "Aldin", but manufactured by CFR...whoever they were. It printed out an impressive chart...I loved that machine.
We weren't yet a day into our "experiment", when next afternoon late a compact low appears in the western limits of the chart...really a steep low, with tight isobars. It was already in Baffin Bay making for the West Coast of Greenland.
We were at 79-30N...as far north any ship can go without an icebreaker.
Only a day, or so west of us...it was time to retrieve our gear, and head for the barn. The others had noticed the storm too. Spark's weather report forecast it right on us within twenty-four hours.
Ops were terminated, we retrieved our gear, and I bid farewell to our friends in the ice. I told the "SOPA" I was headin' for Bear Island...my old haunt in storms.
"You'll never make it.' was the Southwind's skippers reply. "I'll come out to the ice edge, and escort you into the ice where you will have protection.' he said.
"Thanks, but no thanks Cap'...I'll be at Bear Island tomorrow evening...good luck to you.' I said, and it was full ahead on two.
The Hayes in those days could do sixteen knots in good weather, and with a tweak of the jeweler's tool behind the engine control consol, the Chief could put a few more degrees pitch on the wheels, and we would "fly".
She was my "baby", and I loved her. There were many who "hated" her, even those who designed her, and those who "owned" her - NRL, too, but they didn't understand her.
As I told my Admiral - COMSC in Washington during a personal visit about this episode, of which he knew nothing about: "It was an S&W opportunity."
"S&W?' he asked. "Yes - Sink, and Write Off.' I said. "Ship gets crushed, everyone walks over to the Breaker...ship sinks...good riddance!'
"Oh...I see. Hmmmmmm. Makes sense...doesn't it? he said. Not on my watch!
Early the next morning as we're about half-way to Bear Island, my phone rings.... "Morning cap'n...it's 0600...there's a phone call for you back in the scientific lab from the Southwind.' the chief mate, who was on watch tells me.
Oh...crap! I had to dress, and go back aft....
"Yes...cap'n here.' I said into the phone.
"I'm at the ice edge now, and there's still time, won't you reconsider, and return, and I'll take you into the ice where it's safe.' said the Southwind skipper.
"Look who's advising me after seeing the damage he did to make a "schedule".' I think to myself.
"No, no, no...but thanks anyways Cap...I'll be hove to behind Bear Island this evening, and I wish you luck.' BANG...I hang up, and head for the bridge, and coffee.
That evening, tucked up real close, and cozy like to the SW coast of Bear Island, we kill the main engines, and engage the auxiliaries - "fishin' time".
Sometime after supper, the Radio Officer hands me a message on which we are info:
From: Southwind
To: Every command that had to know...dozens.
Info: Hayes, and bunch more.
BT
Unclas//blah blah blah
Subj: Bad Idea
1. Situation critical. ( this first line I remember exactly ).
2. Require Assistance ( this too ).
3. Southwind lost half propulsive power.
4. Edisto lost starboard wheel, and rudder.
5. Cannot protect Mizar.
BT
Don't think I didn't for a moment feel a little guilty buggerin' off like that, and leaving them, but I soon came to my senses. If not at that moment, but later on as the ice pressure released, it would have been bye-byes Hayes. I hadn't known at that time, but subsequent reports had the Mizar ramming the Southwind, and damaging her helicopter pad as the three ships in column sought deeper protection.
There wasn't anything we could do, as even where we were - up snug against the lee of the island, the wind was howling, and looking out past the point we could see monstrous seas breaking, and rolling by.
Sending our "warm fuzzy" situation reports to All Concerned, including our hapless comrads, didn't help any...I could well imagine their predicament as that's exactly what my thoughts were when we left the place, and when I had wished them "good luck".
How the Southwind "lost" half her propulsion power I never found out, but surmised it was ice in a cooling water sea-chest. How bad the ice pressure was could only be imagined from experience in ice in the Antarctic years before. I had worked with these breakers down there when the Navy had them, remembering the Burton Island getting stuck when she was to "help" us on the USNS Towle, which bye the way did quite well making her own way through close pack ice eight-feet thick, and into clear water leaving the Burton Island behind.
Messages began flying...needless to say, the most encouraging being one saying that the Canadian ice breaker McDonald was fueling at Halifax in preparation to coming to their aid.
Whether the McDonald even got there, I don't know, but the storm passed, the wind eased up, the ice opened up, and the three limped out of the ice.
This paragraph, which opens this account:
"11-23 Oct 72 freed icebound cutter Edisto and USS Mizar and towed the damaged cutter to Reykjavik, Iceland;" taken from the site mentioned above, asserts that Southwind extracted Mizar, and Edisto, including itself, from the grips of the ice, contrary to messages I remember that said the wind shifted, allowing the ice pressure to ease up, allowing all three to "limp" out, and clear.
Though it wasn't for me to say, nor did I even think of it at the time, but it would have been better for all three of them to follow me to Bear Island, or at least get clear into open water, and heave-to. It would have been a "rough ride", but all three were storm worthy ships, and would have rode it out safely. Finding "safe haven" in ice fields when the open sea was an option wasn't prudent in this case...that's for sure.
C.

Anyhow, after I had sent out the story, I searched on edisto southwind mizar, and got the Coast Guard's perspective on the Edisto's part in the fiasco.
http://laesser.11net.com/cutters/winds/edisto.html: Same as the URL on top.
It was thirty-years ago, and in that time things do get hazy, but you remember the main points, and for me it was the Southwind's skipper's concern for his "brood". Not a particularly eviable position to be in without having an understanding of the other ship's capabilities. He was blinded to his options by his own imagined capabilities: "if there's ice around, that's where he should be".
Here we had four sea-worthy ships, ships that can safely exist in all ocean environments, and conditions - guaranteed, but not in ice. No vessel is "guaranteed" in ice, and even if supposedly built for it, is better off not in it if it doesn't have to be. Even the world's largest icebreakers lose propellors, and sustain damage in ice - it's a formidble foe.
It's fun to "play" icebreaker as long as everything goes alright, and nature lets you. All that fun stuph of towing, and "breaking out", ramming, etc., but it soon gets old, especially when equipment balks.

Eye witness account rcvd 15 Apr 2003:

Voyage 50, 1 October 1972, LAT 79* 44' 36" N, LNG 00* 35' 28" W, 30-mile excursion into 6-foot polar ice. Was on frozen wheel when the improperly rigged tow cables parted, cutting through our starboard bow in bos'ns locker, and on cutter; cut through a helicopter landing pad support. There was no collision. The other cutter, when ice jammed her, threw a bronze screw, and had to put in for repairs.
Jim A. Miller, Jr.

Thanks Jim
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I remember one rather humorous incident in the Antarctic on the USNS Towle. I was chief mate, full of it...I was young. The skipper was an old timer whose temperment for such games in the ice was limited. The icebreakers - then Navy manned, had broke a nice channel for us, but couldn't get closer than fifteen miles to McMurdo. The old skipper, after several tries just couldn't get the Towle up against the fast ice close enough to unload the ship- the booms didn't have the reach. The brash ice was just everywhere in the channel, and the stuph between us, and the dock just wasn't moving. Of course the plan was for the Towle to come in stem against the fast ice, "shaving off" the brash as she moved ahead, but the "shaving" bit just didn't seem to work for the old skipper. Before I could explain to the skipper my plan, he said: "Here...it's all yours...I'm going below!' and with that said, he did.
I let go all the lines, went down to the end of the channel, and stuck the Towle's bow into the ice, and rang up Full Ahead.
The two icebreakers - USS Glacier ( the largest U.S. breaker at the time ), and Burton Island had already tied up, and secured a ways down the channel, and were all at lunch. The Towle being an 8500 HP Victory, and which could cruise at seventeen knots at 82 rpm, ( 85 rpm at twenty-nozzles would get us nineteen, but we never went "full bore" ) could put out quite a "wash". Of course being hindered by the ice we were butted up against, and that wasn't going anywheres, we couldn't get more than 70 RPM - too much resistance, but nevertheless, after five, or ten minutes of this, we not only washed all the brash out of the channel, but the two icebreakers broke their moorings, and were "washed away" too.

Ho hum...seeing the "dock" clear, I backed down, and re-moored, and went to lunch.
C.