WHOI After the Big Ships
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1 Part Five: At the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution after large ships came, 1958- Chain Cruise 1, 18-24 November, 1958. I was thrilled when Brackett Hersey told me I was to be Chief Scientist on the maiden cruise of the Institution’s new (new to us) ship Chain . She was bringing a much needed increase to the capability of WHOI’s small fleet of small vessels at the time that oceanography was entering its period of most rapid growth. There was excitement throughout the Institution at the prospect, particularly in the Hersey group, which would be a big user of the new ship, but no one was as excited as I. She had been a US Navy rescue and salvage tug (ARS- 20) and lay in a Savannah, Georgia shipyard (Savannah Machine and Foundry Co.), being brought out of retirement and undergoing some modifications to better her for a career as an oceanographic research vessel. She was 214 feet long, had a beam of 41 feet, and drew 15 feet loaded. She was diesel/electric and twin-screwed: diesel engines ran generators that powered Research Vessel Chain about the time of her coming to electric motors that turned the screws. Ownership was to be the WHOI. WHOI. retained by the United States of America. For the time being she was to be operated by a crew of the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) 1 and could hold as many as 39 officers and hands. As a Navy tug she’d had to berth both operating and salvage crews and, so, was spacious and could quarter a scientific party of 26. 2 Some of us took a sleeper from Boston to Savannah. Others trucked gear down from Woods Hole and installed it on the ship. I came aboard her for the first time on the morning of 17 November 1958 and was shown to the roomy chief scientist’s cabin by a white-jacketed sailor from the steward’s department who said he’d been told to look after me. Such treatment was a wonder to someone used to Spartan conditions on small ships. I said hello to the busy skipper, Wallace Olivey , then looked around; there was plenty to see. At noon I walked to the Hotel De Soto for a celebratory luncheon in the company of a Navy lieutenant-commander, who expressed concern that WHOI scientists and MSTS personnel wouldn’t get along. I told him to go find something real to worry about. Capt. Wallace Olivey. WHOI It must have been the owner of the shipyard, a big-time Savannah booster, who was extolled at lunch after the brief commissioning ceremony. His mouthpiece, a lawyer, bragged at length while the principal, smiling, looked modestly down at his feet. 1The MSTS was a naval command, but many of the Chain’s crew were civilians. Her skipper, Wallace Olivey, wore the uniform of a US Navy captain. 2Her steward’s department was especially large; she might have to feed as many as 65 mouths. 2 After lunch I had my first extended talk with Capt. Olivey. He was a handsome man of 40: dark-haired, tanned, well built, and determined looking. He was affable, obviously smart, and serious about his work 3 Sailing had been set for 0800 the next morning (18 November), but Olivey said that so much stowing of gear remained that he was putting off sailing until 1400 that day. After dinner that night a group of us spent several hours drinking and talking: Olivey; Nehring, the first mate; and Habe, the chief engineer, among others. We had a good time getting to know each other a little and finding out who was concerned about what. At 1000 next morning we had fire and boat drill. There was no water at some of the hose points, some of which Olivey had opened with his own hands. He was angry at the ship-yard, because he’d been assured that all emergency equipment was in working order. I knew that I was going to like him when on deck I heard him say to a principal supervisor of the yard, "Mister, I’m the skipper of this vessel. Kindly take your ass in your hand and carry it ashore." The last few hours were hectic. We were loading things that we’d rather hook up and see working while still at dockside. We sailed about 1600, only a couple of hours after Olivey’s appointed time. The yard was glad to see the last of us, and a fireboat saluted our departure by shooting mighty streams of water from its cannons. Then we wound our way down the Savannah River through its wide and beautiful salt marshes, setting a watch that operated the echo-sounder continuously until the offings of Newport, Rhode Island five days later. Just as we dropped the pilot, about two hours after sailing, the 30-kilowatt generator "flashed" and was shut down. That was a harbinger of the electrical problems that would dog us for all of Chain Cruise 1, though they were patiently solved one after another by the ship’s engineers, one of whom was particularly designated "electrician". He got a lot of overtime, but not much sleep. Chain Cruise 1 was a "shakedown" cruise, a cruise for identifying what was wrong, what was missing, and what could be improved. It was not expected that very much science would get done, but a shakedown cruise’s aims are best accomplished when done in the context of a realistic scientific program. Since Chain ’s echo-sounding system would be of first importance to the work of the Hersey group, the principal task set for Chain Cruise 1 was to delineate by echo-sounding (E/S) the westward extent of a certain fault in the southern end of the Blake Plateau, an extension of work done on Bear cruise 140. This especially meant testing the three echo-sounder "heads" that had been installed in the ship’s bottom: port, starboard, and bow transducers. 4 Thus, much of my journal for the cruise is devoted to the performance of the echo-sounding system: how free from noise under various conditions the signal coming from each of the several transducers was, how the received signal was affected by the in-board electronics and, ultimately, the proof of the pudding: the quality of the paper record coming out of the PGR (Precision Graphic Recorder) independent of recorder function itself. 5 Accurate 3It was said that MSTS hoped to land the job of manning all the nation’s public oceanographic vessels and to enlist our support at WHOI they had given us the best: Wallace Olivey. Unfortunate Olivey; not long after he left Chain , his wife and mother, walking together, were killed in a traffic accident not their fault. 4We also carried a transducer mounted in a towable fish, but did not use it. 5 By donning a head-set and plugging it into the echo-sounder transceiver, out-going signal, returning echoes, and noise could all be heard. This was often of much use in interpreting and improving the paper record. 3 navigation would be critical to this work, and I had talked to Olivey and to First Mate Nehring about what we needed. In addition, we had two Loran sets in the main laboratory with which we were to take frequent fixes. Also, we hoped to dredge up manganese nodules, which were known to occur on the Blake Plateau, and to photograph the bottom there. My personal interest was in the deep scattering layers that the PGR might show and in the cetaceans, whales and porpoises, that we might encounter. Chain had plenty of kinks to work out. Failures of parts of her engines, generators, and motors and the electrical circuitry connecting them (including a battery bank) came often. The frequency and variety of ringing alarm bells amused all, ship’s company (except the engineers) and scientific party alike. Some of these interruptions were anticipated or designed and in the top lab we could only grin and quickly turn off certain apparatus when the mate on watch stuck his head up the ladder between bridge and top lab, saying, "Stand by for a power failure". An alarm bell would ring as some piece of gear was shut down, perhaps causing other pieces of gear to shut down and ringing other alarms. Most of these failures were of short duration as another piece of Chain ’s redundant electrical system was brought into play. Excerpts from my log, in which I wrote several times a day, give the flavor of things: November 18, 2020 "We all feel that the top-of-the-wheelhouse lab is magnificent. The view is wonderful. It is light and airy and seems bigger than it is. Settee is dandy. Possibly table opposite settee should be somewhat extended towards settee to give better space for chart-work..." 6 2200 "During the last few hours we seem to have been averaging around 13 knots at standard speed. All E/S gear working number one. 2330 "This ship is very quiet (airborne sound) and has little noticeable vibration..." November 19, 0715 "This ship is the lousiest ship I was ever on for coffee. Either none or cold or no cups." 0850 "Numerous power failures during last hour." 1110 "E/S gear working fine on 150-fm sweep. Ship’s IC board secured now for about one hour. This seems to disconnect our Loran receiver antennas. Preparing winch for operation this afternoon. Captain thinks major engine-room difficulties will be squared away by about 1300 so hope to dredge then..." 1235 "About 1225 alarm bell rings in radio shack.