DISTRICT ELEVEN NORTHERN REGION NORTHWIND UPacific Area & Defense Force West Change of Command May 17, 2010 United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, America’s Volunteer Lifesavers DEPARTMENT OF >>> The Uniformed Volunteer Component of The United States Coast Guard (Authorized by Congress in 1939) July, 2010 ORTHWID July 2010 issue Page 1 Contents July 2010 ←Northwind→ Cover Photo ) Pacific Area and Defense Force West Change of Command and Retirement Ceremony May 17, 2010 Coast Guard Island, Alameda, California. Vice Adm. Manson K. Brown relieved Vice Adm. Jody A. Brecken- ridge as Pacific Area Commander, Vice Adm. David Pekoske, Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, presided over the ceremony. Photo by Curtis S. Han, DCDR-5 1-2 Editorials, Contents, otices, and Masthead. 3-4 Stray Electrical Current Can be Dangerous by Victor Beelik North- 4-5 Member Training Mentor Program for District 11 Members by Steven wind Chan 5-6 Pacific Area Change-of-Command The official publication of the 7 Historical Feature Pritchard and the Greenland Patrol by William H. United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, District 11 NR Theisen, Wings of Gold Publication Vol. I6 No.2 July, 2010 8-9 Rodney E. Collins, DCAPT-RBS * USCGC Aspen (WLB 208) Oil Clean- Up * ACO 2010 by Victor J. Connell, Deputy ational Commodore, Editor in Chief George C. Knies, DSO-PB FORCECOM & PACAREA 9 Commissioning Reception for the USCGC Waesche by Robert Aston Contributing Editors 10 Law Log WHAT CA MEDIATIO ACCOMPLISH THAT TWO ARGUIG Bill Kinsey, ADSO-PB AUILIARISTS CA’T ACHIEVE O THEIR OW? by Robert L. Liu, ADSO-LP John Gordon, ADSO-PB 11 Coast Guard Auxiliary and avy Sea Cadets Memorandum of Under- Design and Production standing. From summer issue of the USCGAUX Magazine AVIGATOR George C. Knies, DSO-PB 11-12 USCG Interpreter Corps at Work by Victor Beelik 13 Mike Lauro Celebrates 10,000 Vessel Safety Checks by Phil Grove Webmaster 14 Photo Ops. USCGC Waesche Commissioning. Irene A. Wetzel, DSO-CS 15-16 Division 05 OPTREX 24 April, 2010 by Curtis Han Web: d11nuscgaux.info/ Northwind/index.html 16-17 Division 04 OPTREX 05 June, 2010 by Paul Verveniotis 17 Seaservice Pot Pourri : Medal of Honor; PERSOAL POTECTIVE EQUIP Photographers this issue MET (PPE) FOR APPLICATS (AP) ; Summer Sailstice, Treasure Island. Lynda McCarty 18 Flotilla Profile Series Flotilla 07-08 Youngest Flotilla in Utah Division by Curtis S. Han John Gordon Joyce Bell PA1 Sherri Eng 18 Armed Forces Sailing Regatta, San Francisco Bay Phil Grove 19-24 ational Safe Boating Week Reports, Missions and Activities: D-1, D-4, George Barantseff D-5, D-6, D-11, D-12. Dessislava Popovska Mary Gleim Victor Beelik EDITIG and DISCLAIMER: This publication reserves the right to proofread and copy-edit all Russ Breed articles submitted. We will undertake to produce the best work possible, while maintaining Uncaptioned photos are in public “the” author’s intent and integrity of the work submitted. We take no responsibility and accept domain. Children photos have Parental/Guardian releases on file no liability for damages or costs caused by any errors left in the document. We cannot accept responsibility for the validity of web sites that link from this publica- Proofreaders tion. Infringement of copyright and plagiarism are serious offences, and we cannot take respon- Bill Kinsey, ADSO-PB sibility for any content submitted by an author. John Gordon, ADSO-PB Prior to submitting an article please have someone else proofread it. Prior to publica- Chris Jewell, VFC-87 tion, your article as it will appear in the orthwind will be made available for your approval. Articles published in the orthwind must be consistent with stated policies of the U.S. NORTHWIND Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary. The Editor Commander (dpa-n) U.S.C.G. Coast Guard Send submissions to: Telephone numbers and addresses of members are protected by Island Bldg. 50-2 George Knies, DSO-PB—Microsoft “Word” the Privacy Act of 1974. As a matter of policy, rosters of names, Alameda, CA 94501-5100 [email protected] addresses and telephone numbers shall not be made available to the general public or any outside organization. Privacy of all rosters shall be safeguarded and the page clearly labeled. The publication EDITOR : George C. Knies 2010 EDITION DEADLINES of these rosters addresses and telephone numbers on any com- TEL: (925) 939-0230 JAN 01 * APR 08 * JUL 01 * OCT 01 puter on-line service including the Internet is prohibited by the Voice/Text: (925) 953-8432 1974 Privacy Act. [email protected] ORTHWID July 2010 issue Page 2 STRAY ELECTRICAL CURRETS CA BE DAGEROUS By: Victor Beelik n the winter 2009 Edition of the eBeacon, Kevin somewhere, and in effect, electricity is escaping to the Ritz gave us his sad story how his 10 year old son ground. The manner it leaks to the ground is very im- I Lucas was electrocuted by stray AC current ema- portant. If your body provides a path to the ground for nating from the docks where he was swimming, wear- this leakage, you could be injured, burned, severely ing a lifejacket, in the Willamette River, Oregon. shocked, or electrocuted. How did this happen? What can we do to avoid it? The “Green Wire” in the AC circuit (the round hole in Investigation by the Sheriff Dept proved that there was your home outlet) provides the AC safety ground. This an alternating current (AC) present and the source was a safety ground wire should be well connected to the power boat tied up in a nearby slip. It seems electrical boat’s DC negative ground. The purpose of this wire is current was leaking into the water, caused by a partial to provide a lowest-resistance path to ground for any short either on the boat or at the shore power connector. stray AC current that finds its way onto the DC ground Fresh water is not a good electrical conductor; therefore system. the AC current was unable to reach ground at a suffi- cient current rate to trip the circuit breaker. Because of A poor-quality connection, which could be caused by its high salinity, the human body is a much better con- corrosion, between the boats DC negative terminal and ductor of electricity than fresh water; thus the electric the AC safety ground (Green Wire) can cause a stray current was conducted to ground through the human AC current to enter the boat’s electrical system. body instead of the fresh water. When this happens, AC current may enter the water Saltwater is more conductive than the human body, through the propeller shaft and can injure or kill swim- which explains why electric shock deaths have occurred mers near the boat. less frequently in saltwater. Electric shock drowning, as Kevin Ritz puts it, is a serious freshwater issue. First and foremost, no one should go in the water at a How serious is it? marina where boats moored are connected to shore power. This is especially true in fresh water marinas. To try to verify the fresh water conductivity issue, this author measured the conductivity of Lake Tahoe water Warning signs should be posted on every pier warning on the south east shore of the lake. The water in the lake people to stay out of the water. Accidents will still hap- is so clean that the conductivity was not measurable: let pen since people often ignore signs (as happened in the us say ZERO! Zero or near zero conductivity translates case of 19-year-old girl in 2005) or one may fall into the to an electrical resistance of near infinity, an insulator! water accidentally. Electrical currents take the path of least resistance. Thus One clear cut solution is to have “Ground Fault Circuit the human body will be the main conduit of electric cur- Interrupter” (GFCI) type devices installed on boats and rent to ground, especially if that human touches ground, shore power connectors which would automatically in- for example, if he grabs on to a well grounded boarding terrupt the flow of electric current into the water in case ladder used to climb onto a dock. of a fault. According to the USCG study done by Capt. David How does the GFCI function? Rifkin and James Shafer, a current as little as 15 to 30 When you look at a normal 120-volt outlet in the United milli-ampers (mA) can create a muscle paralysis, and an States, there are two vertical slots and then a round hole AC current of 100mA can put a heart into fibrillation; centered below them. The left slot is slightly larger than death can follow soon afterwards. the right. The left slot is called "neutral," the right slot is called "hot" and the hole below them is called "ground." This is a very serious problem, but it is preventable. If an appliance is working properly, all electricity that An unintentional electric path between a source of cur- the appliance uses will flow from hot to neutral. A rent and a grounded surface is referred to as a "ground- GFCI monitors the amount of current flowing from hot fault." Ground faults occur when current is leaking to neutral. If there is any imbalance, monitor senses that ORTHWID July 2010 issue Page 3 Continued next page► the current flowing out of the hot terminal is not equal shore power connector. A small amount of current to the current flowing to the neutral terminal. It will trip caused by a ground fault of let say 10mA would trip the (disconnect) the circuit. The sensor in the GFCI is able circuit breaker.