Some interesting Coastie photos

[Shy Tall Guy]

This first one is of me jumping from a helo during a training exercise.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

This is a photo of the old boat house after a 600 foot Liberian freighter ran into our docks. The damage was about $1 million total and that was in 1980 dollars.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Here is the west side of the boathouse.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

This is a photo of the MLB 44300 after the freighter ran over it. The '300 was tied to the outside dock right were the freight hit our docks. If it had been tied to any other dock (there were three others) it would have not been damaged, but it had just returned from its biennial refitting and had not been returning to service yet, so we put it on that dock out of the way (IIRC).

We had just refitted/repainted it; basically overhauling anything that needed to be worked on. We were at a crew member's house getting drunk and partying down as is usual after several months working on a boat in drydock, and we got the news that a freighter had run over the '300, etc.

A freind of mine was on duty at the time, and he had just been inside the '300 doing his evening rounds, and was about 50 feet away on the main non-floating with his back turned when the freighter hit the docks.

 

[Andreina]

this is why I do not feel comfortable on boats and ships... ya never know if there might not be some odd coastal guard station in the way when you are leisurely cruising

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Damn! Got so caught up in the caption I forgot to post the pic.

BTW, the 44300 was the very first 44 foot MLB, and it did survive the collision. It was actually water tight and functional, although heavily damaged. It was repaired and returned to service.

Only 2 44 ft. MLB have ever been decommissioned that I know of, and both had spent hours on the rocks in a storm, the latest one involved some deaths, the first one looked like some monsted had raked the hull with its claws. Both still floated.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

this is why I do not feel comfortable on boats and ships... ya never know if there might not be some odd coastal guard station in the way when you are leisurely cruising

Actually, what happened was that a small pleasure craft got in the way of the freighter and the freighter pilot tried to avoid it, and swung too wide in the turning basin. He should have stayed his course and made the small boat get out of the way - those are the rules, and the results illustrate the reason why.

The freighter was insured by Lloyds, but was not allowed to leave port until about a month later after the investigation had finished.

Today there is a brand new boathouse and dock there, about twice the size of the old boathouse and docks.

About a month after we got the '300 back we docked it at the same dock and a small fishing boat ran into it, but caused no damage.

 

[juicylips]

Thanks for sharing those STG..


Interesting.

Cassidy

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

I found some action photos of the '300 out on the 'net; apparently it was moved to the Cape Dissapointment surf boat school before it was retired to the Columbia River Maritime Museum:

http://home.online.no/~lawford/xrl/images/uscg-44300-3S.jpg http://home.online.no/~lawford/xrl/images/uscg-44300-1.jpg

 

[Bigdog]

Thanks for the cool pics STG. But what does MLB stand for?