USCG Cutter Cartigan - "The Big Storm" by George Copna

Everybody who has sailed aboard ship for any length of time will have a story to tell about a storm. Some are better than others. But basically, they are all good. They provide an insight, for those who will never experience it, of the wonder, along with the sheer terror, that comes of facing waves larger than the vessel in which you are riding. They serve as reminders that we are all just visiting, and all at the mercy of something, at sometime in our lives. Here is George Copna's latest story of the USCG Cutter Cartigan, during which she encounters some very nasty weather. This story takes place around 1961.

THE BIG STORM by George Copna

Once, while on CAMPAT, we were on the tail end of the patrol looking forward to relief. The weather was warm, the seas calm and we were stopped, just drifting at a certain latitude awaiting relief from the CGC SEBAGO out of Pensacola, FL. I was the RM on duty and I heard them, via CW (Morse code) getting underway enroute to relieve us. I copied their radio traffic which included a weather report to 8th CG District New Orleans, LA. The SEBAGO was reporting winds in excess of 60 mph and seas running 25-30 feet. I thought how lucky we were to be in calm seas as opposed to what they were experiencing.

Let me pause here and say that the SEBAGO was literally twice our size at 255 feet as compared to our 125 feet in length. After being relieved of my watch, I went below and hit the rack. I awoke the next morning to some violent ship movements. All the hatches to the exterior decks were 'dogged down' and nobody was permitted outside on deck. The only way to get to the radio shack was through a hatch in the radio shack deck. I climbed up the ladder to relieve the RM on watch and found that we were in the midst of the weather that the SEBAGO had reported. The duty RM advised me that we had absolutely no communications with anybody. The wind and waves had torn away our whip and wire antennae. The only sounds coming from my earphones was loud static.

So, I spent the next four hours standing in the radio shack door watching the helmsman trying to maintain some semblance of a course while plowing into the seas head on. I watched in awe and some fright as we rode up one wave 25-30' and crash down into the trough with a crash. The next wave would cover us up, sometimes to the flying bridge. It was certainly a wild and somewhat frightening ride, and it was the first time I didn't get seasick in rough weather. I guess I was just too scared to think about it.

At one point, a large wave struck the face of the bridge directly and broke out several windows, showering the bridge watch with water and glass shards. This was truly getting to be a worrisome ride! After getting relieved from my watch, I went to the mess deck for some chow - I actually felt good enough to eat. When I got below to the mess deck, I found the cook fore-lonely seated with the evening meal of oyster stew and biscuits sloshing around his feet. So much for chow, so I just went back to my rack.

I was wakened for my next watch (0001-0400) and found we sere still in the maelstrom so all bridge watch standers were still being routed through the radio shack. I hadn't been signed on long before the sliding door that leads to the bridge flew open. A non-rated seaman watchstander stood there and entered the radio shack, endeavoring to close the door behind him. He looked like he had a mouthful of regurgitated stomach contents (a.k.a. vomitus). His abdomen was spasming and his cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk. I told him I'd shut the door, just get down below, out of the radio shack. He lifted up the electrical matt covering the hatch that led down below - right into officer's country. He finally got the hatch open and literally slid down the ladder, hitting the deck HARD! This sudden stop caused him to lose control of his ability to maintain control of the contents in his mouth and he sprayed the area with its contents. He then had to clean up the stinking mess.

We rode like this for close to another day before the storm subsided and the seas began to calm themselves. If my memory serves me correctly, we had ended up in the 7th CG District waters (we were assigned to the 8th CG District).

We limped home, beat up, torn up, canvas all gone from fore & aft, port & starboard, low on fresh water and food and very tired. We finally made it into our home port two days longer than we were supposed to be out. St. Andrew's Marina never looked so good!!

"Storm at Sea - Aboard USCG Cutter Carrigan" by George Copna

The US Coast Guard Cutter Cartigan used to sit moored to the wooden bridge which sits at the end of Ocean Avenue and crosses Sheepshead Bay. A few years ago I wrote about it here and have run subsequently run several stories by some of her crew members who saw that post. This one is from April 2011 and was written by George Copna for Rooftop Reviews. 

Everybody who has sailed aboard ship for any length of time will have a story to tell about a storm. Some are better than others. But basically, they are all good. They provide an insight, for those who will never experience it, of the wonder, along with the sheer terror, that comes of facing waves larger than the vessel in which you are riding. They serve as reminders that we are all just visiting, and all at the mercy of something, at some time in our lives. Here is George Copna's latest story of the USCG Cutter Cartigan, during which she encounters some very nasty weather. This story takes place around 1961.

THE BIG STORM by George Copna

Once, while on CAMPAT, we were on the tail end of the patrol looking forward to relief. The weather was warm, the seas calm and we were stopped, just drifting at a certain latitude awaiting relief from the CGC SEBAGO out of Pensacola, FL. I was the RM on duty and I heard them, via CW (Morse code) getting underway enroute to relieve us. I copied their radio traffic which included a weather report to 8th CG District New Orleans, LA. The SEBAGO was reporting winds in excess of 60 mph and seas running 25-30 feet. I thought how lucky we were to be in calm seas as opposed to what they were experiencing.

Let me pause here and say that the SEBAGO was literally twice our size at 255 feet as compared to our 125 feet in length. After being relieved of my watch, I went below and hit the rack. I awoke the next morning to some violent ship movements. All the hatches to the exterior decks were 'dogged down' and nobody was permitted outside on deck. The only way to get to the radio shack was through a hatch in the radio shack deck. I climbed up the ladder to relieve the RM on watch and found that we were in the midst of the weather that the SEBAGO had reported. The duty RM advised me that we had absolutely no communications with anybody. The wind and waves had torn away our whip and wire antennae. The only sounds coming from my earphones was loud static.

So, I spent the next four hours standing in the radio shack door watching the helmsman trying to maintain some semblance of a course while plowing into the seas head on. I watched in awe and some fright as we rode up one wave 25-30' and crash down into the trough with a crash. The next wave would cover us up, sometimes to the flying bridge. It was certainly a wild and somewhat frightening ride, and it was the first time I didn't get seasick in rough weather. I guess I was just too scared to think about it.

At one point, a large wave struck the face of the bridge directly and broke out several windows, showering the bridge watch with water and glass shards. This was truly getting to be a worrisome ride! After getting relieved from my watch, I went to the mess deck for some chow - I actually felt good enough to eat. When I got below to the mess deck, I found the cook fore-lonely seated with the evening meal of oyster stew and biscuits sloshing around his feet. So much for chow, so I just went back to my rack.

I was wakened for my next watch (0001-0400) and found we sere still in the maelstrom so all bridge watch standers were still being routed through the radio shack. I hadn't been signed on long before the sliding door that leads to the bridge flew open. A non-rated seaman watchstander stood there and entered the radio shack, endeavoring to close the door behind him. He looked like he had a mouthful of regurgitated stomach contents (a.k.a. vomitus). His abdomen was spasming and his cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk. I told him I'd shut the door, just get down below, out of the radio shack. He lifted up the electrical matt covering the hatch that led down below - right into officer's country. He finally got the hatch open and literally slid down the ladder, hitting the deck HARD! This sudden stop caused him to lose control of his ability to maintain control of the contents in his mouth and he sprayed the area with its contents. He then had to clean up the stinking mess.

We rode like this for close to another day before the storm subsided and the seas began to calm themselves. If my memory serves me correctly, we had ended up in the 7th CG District waters (we were assigned to the 8th CG District).

We limped home, beat up, torn up, canvas all gone from fore & aft, port & starboard, low on fresh water and food and very tired. We finally made it into our home port two days longer than we were supposed to be out. St. Andrew's Marina never looked so good!!

Geodetic Survey Markers

Most people; myself included; get these markers confused with being the responsibility of the United States Coast Guard; and there is good reason for that. The initials USCGS, which stands for U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, are awfully similar to USCG, which stands for the United States Coast Guard. They are probably plagued by calls about these survey markers.

The USCGS became the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), and in 1970 was transferred to the control of NOAA, which stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I guess that now would be a good time to tell you who they are and what they do. And also; why it’s important.

NGS; I’m going to stick with that acronym; is the agency that creates and then maintains the records for the grid system upon which all surveying in the United States is based. They have, since the 1800’s, provided a series of “bench marks”, or known coordinates, along with the height above sea level, upon which all other surveys; public and private, are based. That’s quite a challenge, and an even greater responsibility.

One of the nearest markers which I know of is about 15 minutes from my house. It sits in the brick wall of the old Davis Forge Company Building store off of Route 115 in Huntersville. The building has been there for many years. It’s kind of a local landmark which people come to look at. The marker is located on the wall on the right side of the front of the building, about waist high.

The system of coordinates which NOAA; formerly the NCGS; maintains is described as "a consistent coordinate system that defines latitude, longitude, height, scale, gravity, and orientation throughout the United States." Not only do private developers use these coordinates to build things, but the resultant Emergency response imagery rapidly provides aerial imagery for emergency relief in times of flood and other natural disasters.

The original USCG was established in 1807 by Congress during President Jefferson’s time in office. Under the original accomplishments of the agency was to map and chart our coast in the interest of expanding international trade. It was 4 more years before the agencies first representative, F.R. Hassler, even set sail for Europe in order to obtain all of the instruments necessary for that endeavor. And once there, he was stuck for the entire duration of the War of 1812. So, effectively, the work didn't begin until 1815.It would be another 20 years before that first undertaking was satisfactorily completed.

Hassler planned to use simple triangulation in order to accomplish his task. He began in New York, with his first baseline verified in 1817. In 1818 Congress placed the Navy and the Army in charge of Hassler’s work. This virtually stopped the program dead in its tracks until 1832. The reason was simple enough; there was no longer anybody clearly in charge of the work.

In 1832 Hassler was reappointed as head of the project and work began to move forward once again. The work was resumed in 1833. Although the Navy was officially in charge of the project, this time Hassler was able to turn things around slightly and had the Navy assisting him. The project was then turned over to the Treasury Department in 1836.

Ocean soundings were a part of this program as well as land surveys. Ocean soundings had long been measured by hand held “lead lines’ which were knotted at intervals in much the manner of the “sea log”, which was used to gauge the speed of a ship at sea. It wasn't until the invention of Sigsbee Sounding Machine in the latter half of the 19^th Century that things really took off.

Lieutenant Commander Charles Dwight Sigsbee, USN, served as an Assistant in the Coast Survey. He developed his sounding machine and commanded the ship Blake during the first “sound” surveys in the Gulf of Mexico. The ships were commanded by the Navy but manned with civilians and even one of the most famous scientists of the time, Alexander Agassiz, for assistance. NGS would not get their own ships; which were the precursors to today’s NOAA weather ships; until 1900.

The history behind these markers is long and sometimes complicated, as agencies and budgets changed over the years. By 1965 the agency was part of the Environmental Science Services Administration, but that only lasted for 5 years until NGS was transferred once again, this time to NOAA, where it remains today.

You may not have ever heard of these little markers, but the part they play in your daily lives cannot be disputed. For that reason these markers are federally protected, and require great effort to be removed, if they are allowed to be removed at all.

In the second picture I am taking a picture of a woman who came to visit the “old store.” Sue took the photo of me taking the photo of her. You can be sure that she didn't get her camera back until after I had told her about the Geodetic Survey.

Guest Columnist: "Aboard the USCG Cutter Cartigan" by George Copna

Of all the stories and stuff I write about, none has generated such affection and comment, as the posts concerning the old USCG Cutter Cartigan, which sat in Sheepshead Bay for many years when I was growing up in Brooklyn,N.Y.

The following is a story of life aboard the vessel on patrol in the Gulf of Mexico. The photo is of the author in 1966 or '67. I haven't changed a word, just cut and pasted the story straight from the e-mail by Mr. George Dobos,who served aboard her and has promised some more stories, which I will be only too happy to print here.

Hello Robert.

I have attached several fotos that I hope you enjoy. The painting of the two "buck n' a quarters" I got from a calendar somewhere. It is one of my favorite pictures. The bridge was all polished up for inspection. The young skinny guy sitting in the radio shack is yours truly circa 1966 or '67. The last one is the Cartigan taken off the St. Andrew's Marina in 1967 before she got her "racing stripe." The time that I was in, 1964 - 1968 was a bad time for the Coast Guard. All the cutters were aging or had aged already. The larger cutters, 311' & 327', were WWII or before commissions and some were actually old Navy vessels that the Guard got from them. These were very lean years. The modernization of the fleet began in late 1967/68 with the building of 210 ft cutters. As radiomen, we used morse code for commucations over 95% of the time. The main transmitter in the radio shack (the black box next to me in the foto) was an Army model 1944 that had vacuum tubes as big as a football. When it went out, we went to the shipyard here in Panama City and bought one just like it off of an old Liberty Ship that they were going to cut up for scrap. As a side line, Panama City's shipyard made Liberty ships during the war and they came back full circle to be cut up.

My duties as a Radioman differed depending on my rank at the time. As a RM3, during any maneuvering drills, i.e. general quarters, man overboard, etc., my station was working the engine order telegraph. When I made RM2, my billet was sound powered talker on the bridge relaying all communications to and from the bridge to all stations on the ship. There were only three RM's on the ship. Having given you a little background, here comes the first sea story.

We were on Campeche Patrol in the southern Gulf of Mexico. Our CW call sign went from NRLF to NUZY (or in English, CGC Cartigan to Campeche Patrol Vessel). The seas were flat calm, not a ripple or a wave to be seen and it was hot. Did I mention that the airconditioner only worked in the winter time? Anyway, we came across this very large tree branch shaped like a slingshot. It was clearly a menace to navigation. After much deliberation, the Captain decided that we would maneuver into the crotch of the tree, hook a line to it and manually chop it up! He sent the lowest rated seaman down onto the log with an axe. After a couple of whacks, and nothing was happening, he opted to send the XO down to see if he could do any better. The XO had irritated him because while he was trying to get this log cut up, the XO was fishing off the fantail for dolphin. Anyway, on the first swing, the XO cut his safety line and almost fell into the water. Time for a new plan. The Captain contacted District HQ in New Orleans and got permission to destroy the heinous object using our 40mm, 1944 Army single barrel deck gun.

We issued a notice to mariners as to what we were doing and then went to General Quarters. After backing off a safe distance, the order to fire was given. Slow fire. After coming nowhere near the target, the Captain ordered rapid fire. As the gun fired, the ship recoiled to the port and started rolling to the starboard, the gunners firing the entire time. Here's where it gets interesting. As they were firing, they were walking the shells back towards the ship and instead of hitting the target, they were coming closer to hitting ourselves. Needless to say, the Capt. ordered a cease fire because we weren't doing any good. We ended up taking a broom stick, putting a lifevest light on it and tacking it to the log. We chartered its path and issued another Notice to Mariners and let it go on its way.

More stories to follow later.
George

Coast Guard Cutter Cartigan WSC-132

This ship used to sit moored to the wooden foot bridge opposite Lundy's in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. I used to fish from that bridge as a kid. When I was a teenager there was nothing more exotic for me than to walk the less than one mile from my family's apartment on Avenue R to look at it.

When I was 18 I wrote a poem sitting at the opposite end of the Bay and looking at her. You might say we had a relationship with one another. She was always there for me, and she could always count on me to visit her. She was old and in need of a paint job. Her length was only 125 foot long and she displaced a mere 232 tons - but to me she was the Queen Mary and represented the entire world which lay beyond the horizon.

I had been told that she was a World War One vessel that had been designed for Coastal Defense. It was sad to learn that this was not true. But the real story is just as good.

Built by American Brown in Camden, New Jersey, her keel was laid in 1926 and she was at sea by the spring of 1927. Her total cost was $76,000. Her primary duty was as a Revenue Cutter- she chased down and boarded the rum runners which were plying the coast then in defiance of the Volstead Act. Legs Diamond lived a few short blocks away in Manhattan Beach. I only mention this because alot of bootleggers were buying some of the older cutters and intercepting their rival gangs shipments of illegal liquor only 12 miles from the Bay. A bit of irony.

After capturing a rum runner in 1930 she was transferred to Norfolk, Virginia. In 1932 she went to Harbor Beach, Michigan where she would remain for 10 years. In 1942 she was transferred to Connecticut where she did light ice breaking duty. In 1943 she was sent back to Brooklyn to patrol the coast, looking for German U-boats that were sinking ships as close as 10 miles off Coney Island and Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Decommissioned in 1969 and sold in 1972 for $26,129 she remained at her moorings, where she sank in 2003. In 2004 she was raised and sold for scrap.

Fond memories for me of a ship that influenced my decision to join the Navy and then later the Merchant Marines. Sometimes inspiration can come from the most unexpected of places- in this case a battered old ship "welded" to its' pier propelled me on a journey that took me around the world 3 times in an attempt to find out just who I was. By the way, I'm still looking...

No messages or lessons here- just a small tribute to something that was such a great influence in my life.