USS Port Royal

Jenn wanted me to tell a little about what we did on the Port Royal. Well we went there to help a tired crew. They had tried to free her from the reef 3 times and each time was early in the morning at 2:30 am. Not only did they deal with those crazy hours they also had no A/C so it was hot inside the ship and they had no showers. The reason for all that is because we use sea water for cooling equipment like Air Compressors and A/C's and they were so close to the bottom that the pumps that bring in the sea water were getting clogged with sand. So they had a lot to deal with.

So at 10am Sunday moring the Lake Erie took 12 people over to help out. I watched the news tonight and they said that they got the ship free by removing 500 tons of sea water from her and her anchor and anchor chain. That is what we did, almost by ourselves. We used electric pumps to pump out water from fuel storage tanks all over the ship. These ships have sea water compensated tanks on them. The means that water is placed in the tanks in place of the fuel when used so the ship always sits at around the same depth in the water. It was a lot work that took us all the way to 1:30 am to do. It was also extremely hot and dirty work. After we finished getting all the water out we went on the flight deck and waited to see if she would move this time. We were also on stand-by to help if there was any damage. Well after a few minutes of pulling we saw that we were moving. The crew seemed to be relieved. We were back in port by 5 am and they let us go home to clean up and get some rest. It was a long hard day but de-watering is one of the things Damage Controlman are trained to do and the gear we used is the gear my guys maintain. So it was good to get to use our training and help the Port Royal.