Chasing Subs!

[limeydal]

Caught this nice Zodiac hurricane on the bay this weekend.Seems it was keeping the hardboaters away from this sub on manouvers. Seems they tolerated their "little orange RIB budy" (thats me ) as long as I didn't push things too far
Interesting to see them throw a couple of white echomax reflectors over the side of the tower .Now if they only put markings on the sub, so I knew what the heck it was
cheers Dal

[603doug]

We have Portsmouth Navy Yard in the river leading out to sea (right now two subs are at the docks) and they get cranky when some boat gets a little close, but you are right I have come up the river when there is a flotilla of fishing boats in front of the base and I have swung in closer than "normal" and they just cock the 50 cal but do not offer to shoot

[Tomas]

Originally Posted by 603doug

they get cranky when some boat gets a little close, but you are right I have come up the river when there is a flotilla of fishing boats in front of the base and I have swung in closer than "normal" and they just cock the 50 cal but do not offer to shoot

I ear you! I was fortunate to sail with a tall ship into Norfolk for part of the 400th Jamestown celebration and the Navy, in all its wisdom decided to deploy two subs outbound into a flotilla of over 40 tall ships and 200 or so spectator vessels. They were using one of those aluminum SAFE boats to try to carve some space and they nearly rammed a French sailing ship to try to get it to change course. A CG guy who as onboard says they like to have a 500 yard separation but that hardly seems practical in an area like Hampton Rhodes. That is a 50 cal. and you just know its loaded.....

The other shot is of the "Bluenose" out of the great state of Maine. She was, without question, the Belle of the Ball!

I also added a shot of the reception we got from another Navy ship that was anchored on the parade route! I just felt special getting a salute from those sailors!

Tomas

[jyasaki]

Los Angeles class sub?

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/ssn-688_i.htm

Do you have a pic with the hull number that is usually on the conning tower? Should be pretty easy to ID if you had that.

jky

[Tomas]

Originally Posted by jyasaki

Los Angeles class sub?

Do you have a pic with the hull number that is usually on the conning tower? Should be pretty easy to ID if you had that.

jky

Jayasaki...I can't speak for Limeydal but neither of the two subs that passed us by in Hampton Rhodes had numbers on the tower...at least that I could see from less than 75 yards. I know they have "boomers" and "hunter/killers" but I couldn't tell the difference between the two if they ran over me. A number of years ago I was on a 48' ketch and caught the wake from a surfaced sub running at a pretty good clip and it made the wake from a container ship look modest!!!

[Tomas]

Originally Posted by Tomas

Jayasaki...

Make that Jyasaki...nothing more respectful than spelling a name correctly.

Tomas

[limeydal]

Heard they took off all identifying numbers ! Probably to confuse everyone!
It worked
Tomas, wish I were closer. Would have been i heaven with all the tal shps
cheers Dal

[Tomas]

Yes, it was something. I sailed on the Picton Castle, a three masted square rig barque of 182 feet. Around 40 ships assembled near Little Creek at the entrance to Hampton Rhodes for a parade up the Elizabeth River to our pier on the downtown Norfolk waterfront. Those ships require a lot of labor as everything is manual, including the anchor windlass. Every sixty feet of chain weighs over 2000 lbs and the anchor as much as a small car. There are no winches, only block and tackle and pin rails.

Today is fishing day as the wind has finally fallen off after a month of very strong trades. We have very little protected water and my willingness to go up wind into it with my 4.7 m Searider has gone away! The boat can take more than the boat driver, that's for sure.

[jyasaki]

Originally Posted by limeydal

Heard they took off all identifying numbers ! Probably to confuse everyone!
It worked
Tomas, wish I were closer. Would have been i heaven with all the tal shps
cheers Dal

Could well be. Secrecy seems to the order of the day; since the Russians have given up confronting us, I guess they'll now make vague references to threats to keep the budget numbers up...

The boomers have a bulge on the rear hull area where the missile tubes are; the attack subs tend to be a little more cylindrical (at least with the LA and Ohio class subs. Don't know about the new ones that are not supposed to exist yet.)

Nice pics, by the way.


jky

[limeydal]

Tomas,
Isn't Picton Castle the one they used in the recent "reality" TV series about pirates?
cheers Dal