Saturday, March 18, 2006
Squid Duty
This is a familiar duty for sailors since the naval ships changed out coal fired boilers for oil fired boilers before WWII. On the left is our rather aged carrier, CNV 65, the USS Enterprise, which is taking on aviation fuel through two sets of hoses (the Big E is nuclear powered, so it doesn't need fuel oil for the boilers). On the right, the FFG 50, the USS Taylor, takes on fuel oil through one set of slightly thicker hoses. The Taylor is a guided missile frigate, and boy, does it look small. Notice that the name of the ship supplying fuel (and bombs, on the fan deck) is the USNS Supply (T-AOE 6). Brilliant. A supply ship named the Supply. Talk about generic names.
Notice too that they're refueling at sea while they sail along fast enough to water ski behind them. The swell looks relatively slight, but there are whitecaps. That just can't be easy.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:07 AM 
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A couple of quick points:
1) The Taylor is 453 feet long, so it's small relative to the Enterprise, but otherwise, well, not so much. 8-)
2) I don't know how big the swell was when the picture was taken, and there's really no way to tell from the picture itself. (There might well be standing waves set up by the three-ship formation, for instance.) That said, from the picture, I'd put the seas in the 6-10 foot range.
(I tried to comment on this over the weekend, but Blogger seemed to be feeling poorly. Sorry for the non-timely reply. Hmm, would that be a "timeless" reply?)
1) The Taylor is 453 feet long, so it's small relative to the Enterprise, but otherwise, well, not so much. 8-)
2) I don't know how big the swell was when the picture was taken, and there's really no way to tell from the picture itself. (There might well be standing waves set up by the three-ship formation, for instance.) That said, from the picture, I'd put the seas in the 6-10 foot range.
(I tried to comment on this over the weekend, but Blogger seemed to be feeling poorly. Sorry for the non-timely reply. Hmm, would that be a "timeless" reply?)
Thanks Doug, but even at 453 feet, it looks like a pencil in the water next to the Enterprise, which it kinda is. 6-10 foot swell. I thought less but I'll go with your estimate.
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