My time aboard the
Texaco New York gave me enough sea time to sit for my
2nd Mate's license which I did during the following vacation. There
was little difference between raising one's license and taking the
original license. It was a similar written exam, broken into sections,
and took a good week to complete. I do remember one Rules of the Road
question in particular - you see a white light, what is it? There are a
ton of possibilities as to what this could be. I asked the exam
proctor what they were looking for - International Rules, Inland Rules
etc... but he would not divulge anything. He just said to write what it
could be. I filled an entire exam booklet, which I think was 16 pages,
with just this one answer. Talk about a time-consuming question.
Anyway, I passed the exam.
 |
| Texaco California entering Corpus Christi - this picture makes her look like a rust-bucket. She most definitely was not. |
|
At this time, Texaco was in the process of jumboizing several of the Florida class ships. They were being turned into 42,000 DWT stemliners. I was assigned as 2nd Mate to the
Texaco California at Maryland Drydock in Baltimore. Because the ship was not yet habitable, the five of us crew present stayed in the Holiday Inn just across the street from the Baltimore Civic Center where the NBA and AHL teams played. Leo Brennan was the skipper. Leo had driven his Cadillac to Baltimore and every night he drove us to a different restaurant. We dined well. There was no work on weekends and I was lucky enough to meet a port engineer who commuted to the neighboring town where I lived. He would take me home Friday afternoons and pick me up early Monday mornings which turned out great since my wife was very pregnant at the time. When the ship's conversion was completed, the ship was fully crewed and I was bumped back to 3rd Mate. For the next 2 months, we shuttled between Port Arthur and USNH. The only thing of note during that time was passing close by a collision. Two ships had been passing off of Cape Hatteras when one lost its steering and veered directly into the other. Luckily the weather was flat calm. The ships were still stuck together when we passed a day later.
Five days after going on vacation, my daughter was born !!! My wife couldn't have timed it better.
 |
| Texaco Montana |
I joined the
Montana later that summer. This was my first repeat ship. Virgil Foreman, the Chief Engineer at the time, gave me the nickname "Low Lead" which was fitting since we carried low lead gasoline in the days before lead free became the standard. I was Second Mate for most of the assignment. Ed Kitchens was the Master and Walter Lomax the Mate. We made several trips from the Gulf to USNH and then loaded lube oils for an intercoastal voyage to the West Coast. On the Pacific leg from Panama to Long Beach, I encountered my first Tehauntepecer, a strong wind that frequently blows across the narrowest part of Central Mexico from the Yucutan to the Pacific. We discharged at Long Beach and Seattle, then shifted up to Ferndale, WA (near the Canadian border) and back loaded for Oakland. On the return trip, we stopped in the Gatun Lake (Panama Canal) and loaded fresh water for Trinidad. There was a drought in the area and the refinery needed fresh water to operate. After discharging the fresh water, we proceeded to San Nicolas, Aruba to load Gas Oil for Tiverton and Providence. I always enjoyed sailing on the
Montana and this time was no different. Good ship - good crew.
 |
Texaco North Dakota
|
On October 3, 1973, the Texaco North Dakota suffered a pumproom explosion. I was on vacation at the time and received a call to go to Mobile, Alabama to stand security watches on the ship while the crew attended USCG hearings. I stood the 2000 to 0800 deck watch. Capt. Eddy George stood the 0800 to 2000 watch. We stayed in a fly-by-night motel in downtown Mobile and took cabs back and forth to Alabama Drydock. This was not a pleasant assignment. The ship was like a morgue. There was no power onboard and only a few shore-provided lights had been strung. Luckily my assignment there lasted only one week. I was able to go home and finish out my vacation.
 |
| Texaco Kansas |
My next assignment was 2nd Mate on the
Texaco Kansas, another T-2. The
Kansas was drug store. Her primary cargoes were asphalt and lube oils. Texaco liked to keep one Northern mate assigned to the
Kansas so that the 2 Southern mates could get time at home while in the ship was in Port Neches and Port Arthur. That meant some long hours for me in Texas but if scheduled right, it wasn't so bad. The ship always went to Port Neches first to load asphalt and road oil. That took around 16 hours. We would then shift down to Texas Island and the port relief mate would take over for the next 16 hours. I would relieve him for the next 8 hours until the other mates came back. So I was owed a lot of watches every trip. I rarely stood an afternoon watch in the discharge ports. We'd usually hit Miami, Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, and Norfolk. I got to know those cities well during my time on the
Kansas. The other mates during my time onboard were Dick Nally, Oren Crocker and Simos Georgandis. Capt. Borgerson was the Master. I used to get a kick out of Dick. He lived near Port Neches and owned a houseboat. Every trip he'd cruise by the dock and holler up to me something to the effect that I really didn't need him to come back to relieve me until the ship was ready to sail.
On New Years Eve, December 31, 1973, we were docking in Jacksonville. Tug boats were used to run the lines to nearby bollards. The crew on the stern tug were noticeably drunk. We lowered them the stern lines which they piled up on their deck, then promptly threw the excess overboard right into our propeller. What a mess. We had to bring more lines up from the lazarette to get tied up, then the next day hire someone to cut the original lines out of the prop. Capt. Borgerson was getting ready to retire and wound up making this his last trip. He sold me his sextant when he left. It was a WWII vintage Plath. I still have it today, although nobody uses sextants anymore. I just keep it as a souvenir.
After Capt. Borgerson retired, we had several other masters during my time on the
Kansas including Jack Roos and Bill Cubbage. Capt. Cubbage deserves special mention because he was one-of-a-kind. An old-timer, Capt. Cubbage gave the first impression of being very gruff. I found him entertaining and got along well with him. He certainly had some navigation idiosyncracies, the most unique being passing inside of Diamond Shoals Light, located off of Cape Hatteras, on southbound ballast voyages. It took some getting used to but we never ran aground and managed to avoid some of the Gulf Stream current by cutting the corner.
I spent 5 months on the Kansas, at my request. That was because my wife was expecting again and the only way I would
have enough vacation to be home for the birth was to build up a lot of
vacation time. However, during the time on the
Kansas, I frequently lobbied the Port Arthur personnel office for a temporary shore assignment in either the New York office or the Bayonne Terminal. Neither materialized although as I found out later, the New York office did want me to come in for an interview but the word was not passed on to me. The closest I got to home during that time was Norfolk. Midway through the assignment, my wife made the trip down. I got to see her only once in those 5 months but in the end it was worth it because I was able to take extra time off when my son was born.
In July 1974, I was assigned to the
Texaco Illinois as 2nd Mate. The
Illinois was another jumboized T-2. Originally named
San Pasqual, she was built in 1945 by Sun Shipbuilding. In 1947 she was renamed
Illinois and in 1960
Texaco Illinois. She was jumboized at Alabama Drydock in 1961, enlarged to 14,324 GRT and measuring 549' x 78.6'. We carried clean oil from the Gulf to USNH. Portland, ME was a common discharge port. My father often visited when we docked in Portland. Bruce Calhoun joined as Captain. It was his first skipper's job. He was rudely greeted in early September by Hurricane Carmen. We were loading in Port Arthur. The hurricane had just come across the Yucatan into the Gulf of Mexico. I clearly remember someone from the office coming aboard for lunch, which was a common occurrence, and asking Bruce if he was going to sail. Bruce replied "Of course." As we departed Sabine Pass, we encountered other ships that had turned around and were heading back into port, not wanting to mess with the storm. Bruce had a plan. Not knowing whether the Carmen was going to turn West toward Texas or North toward Louisiana, we headed due South at slow speed until the storm made up its mind. It headed West. We turned due East, sped up and passed well North of Carmen, encountering some good sized swells and increased winds but nothing like what it could have been like. It was a well-thought-out voyage plan.
Bruce was bumped back to Chief Mate when the steady master returned, Capt. Louis Guernsey. Affectionately known as "mother," Capt. Guernsey was an involved captain. For example, when stripping tanks, he would often come out on deck, borrow the mate-on-watch's mirror, and strip some tanks himself. Personally, I found this a bit annoying because there was always a feeling that "mother" didn't trust his mates to do the job and that he could do it better than we could.
One voyage, after discharging at Portland, ME, we took a coastwise pilot so we could go through the Cape Cod Canal to save time. I was on watch as we approached Brenton Reef pilot station just south of Narragansett Bay where the coastwise pilot was to disembark. The Captain and the pilot were out on the port bridge wing talking while I manned the telegraph. A commercial fishing boat was approaching broad on the port bow, heading back into port. Being the starboard vessel, we had the right of way. The fishing vessel passed very close ahead. The Captain and pilot charged through the wheelhouse to the starboard bridge wing. As they passed, I asked if they wanted me to stop the ship and blow the danger signal to which they replied "yes." The fishing boat passed right down the starboard side, with men on deck yelling and shaking their fists at us. It was unclear if we had collided. The fishing boat then continued its course into Narragansett Bay. Capt. Guernsey called the USCG on the VHF and advised them that his ship had just been struck by a fishing boat. I was sent down to wake up Bruce so he could go check the forepeak for possible damage. There was none. We anchored for several hours until cleared to sail by the Coast Guard. The scuttlebut later on was that Texaco bought them a new fishing boat.
The
Ilinois was due for its periodical drydocking. After cleaning tanks, we went to Tampa Shipyard, owned by a famous baseball family. I stayed a week before going on leave. That week was not uneventful. We had tank washing slops to discharge. Unfortunately, the shipyard did not have adequate slop facilities. They hired tank trucks which we would fill using a steam stripping pump running slow and butterworth hoses. Tank trucks seemed to be in short supply and we often had to wait for the truck to go discharge the slops somewhere than come back for another load. It took forever. Then the shipyard came up with the brilliant idea that at night we should stretch hoses into a neighboring field and flood the field with slops so it would sink in before daylight. After much debate, this was how we were directed to proceed so for 2 nights we flooded the ground until all our slops were discharged. I was glad to go on vacation after seeing those shenanigans.
Texaco sold the
Illinois in 1976. She became the
Point Julie and was scrapped in 1982.
During my time on the
Texaco Illinois I earned enough 2nd
Mate's time to sit for my Chief Mate's license which I did during my
vacation. As a reward, we went to Bermuda for a week and stayed at
Glencoe located on the Salt Kettle peninsula right across the harbor
from Hamilton. We liked Glencoe a lot. It was convenient to the south
shore beaches by moped and also within a short ferry ride to Hamilton.
Our routine was to go into Hamilton in the morning to shop and have
lunch and then hit the beach, or the golf course, in the afternoon.
After returning home, I remember telling my wife that, while I didn't
expect a Chief Mate's job anytime soon, I'd better start paying close
attention to the Chief Mate's duties. Lo and behold if Lynn Phillips,
the Texaco officer assignment rep at the time, didn't call the next week
and assign me to the
Texaco Connecticut as Chief Mate. Capt.
Albert D. (Dave) Healey was the skipper and he made the new promotion
easy for me. Capt. Healey was as organized as any skipper I had sailed
with. He kept meticulous navigation records, recording every ship's
position, speed, distance, current, landmark etc... one could possibly
imagine.
 |
| Texaco Connecticut |
On my first voyage as Chief Mate, we split-loaded
Furnace Oil at the Loup, an acronym for Texaco's Louisiana Plant, which
was located about 8 hours up the Mississippi River near the town of
Gonzales, and Port Arthur. Our discharge ports were White Fuel (South
Boston), Tiverton, RI and Providence. After Providence, we headed for
Point-a-Pierre, Trinidad to load Jet Fuel and Naptha for New York. The
stay in Trinidad was eventful. Texaco's linehandlers were on strike.
Things got worse just before we arrived. The linehandlers had been
tying up or letting go one ship per day until one ship got smart and put
out bights of lines, then, when finished loading, slipped their lines
in the middle of the night and undocked on their own. This caused the
linehandlers to reduce their efforts to one line per 8 hour shift,
excepting the spring wires which they worked 2 per shift. We stayed
there for 2 weeks for what normally would have been a 24 hour loading
operation. The docking and undocking operations took two days each,
with pilots and tugs working the entire time. I was able to go ashore
to San Fernando one afternoon. I was surprised to see that most of the
shop keepers were from India. I can't think about my first time on the
Connecticut
without mentioning the Third Mate, Jay Kelly, one of the
hardest-working, most diligent young mates I have ever met. Our paths
were to cross several times later over the years including in Bermuda
where he once vacationed based on hearing me talk about my recent trip
to Glencoe.
I stayed on the
Connecticut for a month before transferring to the
Montana
as 2nd Mate, my third go-round on the "Queen of the Fleet." Capt.
Manry was the skipper. He was nearing retirement and was very concerned
about leaving the sea. On his last voyage, he rarely left the bridge,
even sleeping on the settee in the chart room. It was sad to see him in
such a state. The Chief Mate (C.G.) was an old-time cajun. A very
nice and polite man but his better days had passed him by to the extent
that he shouldn't have still been sailing. He didn't appear to have a
good grasp on the cargo system and relied too heavily on the unlicensed
crew. I clearly remember one Sunday we were southbound off the Florida
coast, not far from Port Everglades. The Mate had been washing tanks in
the morning. He apparently told the bosun to change a manifold
run-a-round after lunch and then start washing the next set of tanks
while he took a break. The manifold was changed as directed but the
bosun forgot to close the related header valves. When they started the
tank washing, two streams of dirty water came shooting out of the open
manifolds right over the side. I happened to be standing on the
starboard bridge wing at the time and saw it immediately. I yelled down
to the bosun to close the headers and ran into the wheelhouse, called
the engine room and had the pumps stopped. I sent the quartermaster
down to get the Mate who had apparently been taking a nap since he came
out on deck in his pj's rubbing his eyes wondering what was going on.
Because it was Sunday, the coast was littered with small boats of all
sorts. No one could have missed the incident. Two hours later, at
afternoon coffee time with Capt. Manry and the Mate in attendance, as we
passed Miami a Coast Guard cutter came out of the harbor and made two
circles around us. It was evident that a small boat had reported our
pollution incident. Surprisingly enough, the Coast Guard didn't hail us
but just went back into port. Capt. Manry, not being aware of the
incident, wondered aloud why they had come to check us out. Nobody said
a word.
 |
| "Queen of the Fleet" |
I made three voyages on the
Montana before
going on vacation. We called at multiple ports including the Loup, 9
Mile Point (Mississippi River), Corpus Christi, Port Everglades, Eagle
Point, Chelsea, Bayonne and Providence carrying multiple clean oil
cargoes such as Diesel, Furnace Oil, Fire Chief Gasoline, Petrox,
Benzene, Av Gas, and Alkylate.
 |
| Texaco North Dakota |
Those multiple ports and cargoes paled in comparison to my next ship, the
North Dakota. She was the only one of her class that wasn't jumboized (like the
New York,
Connecticut,
Florida and
California). The
North Dakota was 565 feet long and 75 feet wide with a DWT of 19,916. Similar to the
Kansas,
she was fitted with special tanks (5 and 6 across) to carry Asphalt and
Road Oil. She also had 12 small lube oil tanks (7, 8 and 9 wings). It
was not unusual to carry 20 different grades of cargo. This was a busy
ship and a fast ship. Voyages were short and there was no down time.
If we weren't in port working cargo, then we were at sea cleaning tanks
or standing extra watches so the Chief Mate could rest. Three months on
this ship was a long time. Luckily, John Welch was the captain most of
the time. He was a fine man and a first class skipper.
During
my next vacation, I was scheduled for fire fighting school held at the
Navy training center on Treasure Island. We left the kids with their
grandparents and flew out to SF a week early to vacation with John and
Patti McConnico. We spent the first few days touring the city itself.
One evening we signed up for a guided tour which included drinks at the
Hungry I (beatknik bar where the Kingston Trio got their start), a show
at Finocchio's (infamous cross-dressing entertainment) topped off by a
dinner concert at the Fairmont Hotel (Brasil 66). I don't claim to be
an expert on concerts but without a doubt the Sergio Mendes Brasil 66
concert was the best show I have ever seen, bar none.
Just
prior to leaving for SF, my wife decided to get a hair cut. The "in"
style at the time was a shag cut. When she came home from the salon,
her new "do" made her look a bit like Patty Hearst. I jokingly told her
that she was going to get us arrested out there. Darned if Patty
Hearst wasn't caught not far from our hotel while we were there. The
next day, my wife went and got her hair cut again.
 |
| San Francisco - Sept 1975 |
From SF we headed to Carmel on the
Monterey Peninsula. The 17 mile drive near Pebble Beach was pricey but
worth it. Carmel was already an up-scale town in those days. The thing I
remember the most was the huge omelet I had for dinner there. It was
the biggest omelet I'd ever seen. After leaving Carmel, we drove south
on Highway 1 to Big Sur. The scenery was beautiful but there really was
no destination other than a state park / campground so we turned around
and headed to Fresno, where the McConnico's lived.
 |
| Monterey - Sept 1975 |
From Fresno we took a day trip to Yosemite
Park. Gathering pine cones was allowed in those days and we picked up
quite a few very large ones as souvenirs. We still have a couple of
them that we put out during the holidays.
All in all
we had a wonderful week's vacation. I sent my wife home the day before
fire fighting school started. The school lasted 5 days however one of
the attendees, an older Chief Engineer who worked for Chevron, died of a
heart attack during the hose-handling training which caused the
instructors to limit our participation for the rest of the week.
Upon
returning home I was offered a temporary assignment in the New York
office which I accepted. It was short-lived. Welcome to office
politics. I had enjoyed my time in the NY office in 1971. Everyone was
on the same page and did their job professionally. Not so in 1975.
Texaco was developing a computer-based data base named MIDAS (Marine
Information Data Assessment System). I was asked to coordinate it. My
first day on the job was an eye-opener. The office I was promised
turned out to be the desk with the coffee gear on it. The assistant
port captain was an old-time Caltex employee who spent the whole day
circulating around the office doing nothing. At one point he asked me
to help him catch up on his work. He brought over a stack of letters,
many months old, and asked me to respond to them. Most of the letters
dealt with the international fleet that I was not familiar with.
However I was familiar with the substance of one of the older letters -
carrying Naptha from Trinidad to the Northeast. I had done so on the
Connecticut and
told him so. The letter had requested his attendance at a ship
discharging Naptha in the New York area. He didn't want to do it and
told me to do it in his place. It was apparent I was just going to be
used as the office gofer. The straw that broke the camel's back
happened the first Friday. I was called in to the personnel manager's
office and asked why I had not shown up for the job interview set up for
me a year previously. I was dumbfounded. A year earlier while I had
been on the
Kansas, I had repeatedly lobbied the personnel
department in Port Arthur for a temporary NY office assignment so I
could be home when my son was born. I was denied the assignment and
spent a long 5 months away from home seeing my wife only once during
that time. That wasn't easy. Turns out that there was an opening for
an assignment in NY but for some reason the Port Arthur office never
communicated this to me. When I told the NY personnel manager this, he
seemed not to believe me and acted like it was my fault. I was really
pissed. That weekend I decided the office politics were pure b.s. so I
went in on Monday and requested to return to sea. I was soon assigned
to the
Texaco Massachusetts as Second Mate.
 |
Texaco Massachusetts - Call Sign KAAD
|
The Massachusetts was built in Sparrows Point, MD in 1963. She was 578 feet in length, had a GRT of 16,515 and DWT of 19,683. Several crew members on the
Massachusetts had
strong personalities which gave the ship a bad reputation. Many young
officers had been fired from this ship. My belief had always been that
other personalities didn't matter as long as you were professional.
This attitude served me well on the
Massachusetts because within a
month I was promoted to Chief Mate and after finishing my 3 months
onboard, was asked to return again for another go-around. Capt. O.J.
Landry was the skipper. An old-timer, Capt. Landry had a tough
exterior, having been a boxer in his youth and also having spent prison
time on Louisiana chain gangs. But underneath this toughness, I found
Capt. Landry to be a very fair person. Do your job and you were fine.
Gordon Tinney was the Chief Mate/Relieving Master. He was a very large
man, tipping the scales at over 400 pounds. He was affectionately know
by the crew as "Fat Daddy" and took this moniker in very good spirits.
Even though it was difficult for "Fat Daddy" to get around, I learned a
lot from him. He had vast experience as Chief Mate and knew every
shortcut in the book. This made him one of the most efficient Mates I
had sailed with. For example, the
Massachusetts and her sister
ships were fitted with a gas-freeing system, a "windmill," which could
be quirky to operate. "Fat Daddy" had the "windmill" operation down to a
science, knowing exactly how many turns each tank valve had to be
opened, and could dry up the tanks quickly. There was no wasted motion
with "Fat Daddy" and he was helped out with his good working
relationship with pumpman Foster Davis.
The Radio Officer on the
Massachusetts,
George Billias, had sailed with Capt. Landry for years. They both
liked to play the horses. I had been to the track but wasn't that
knowledgeable about horse racing. One trip to Boston, I overheard
George and Capt. Landry talking about the daily double that day at
Suffolk Downs, the local race track. They mentioned the number 3 horse
in the second race. My wife had previously been lucky at the track by
playing our anniversary date, 10 3, for the daily double so I gave
George $10 to play 10 3 for me. Turns out 10 was a real long shot but
wound up winning the first race. The 3 horse lost the second race by a
nose so nobody won, but George was sure I had a system because I was
able to pick the winning 10 horse. I just told him I had a good feeling
about it. Afterwards, when our schedule allowed him time to head to
the track, he would ask me for my picks, which were pure guesses on my
part.
I enjoyed my two rotations on the
Massachusetts.
Most of our voyages were to USNH including many backloads at the Getty
refinery in Delaware City. Ships loading at Delaware City were used to
help keep the entrance channel there from silting up. We would often
scrape the bottom on the way out. This dredging practice was also
permitted and carried out at certain berths in Port Arthur and
Pilottown, LA. The only snafu I ever had during my time on the
Massachusetts was trying to get relieved on time; few Mates wanted to be assigned there. I had already been onboard over 100 days when I called home from Corpus Christi to find out my house had been robbed and my grandmother, who was our neighbor growing up, was on her death bed. My wife had called LP to see if I was being relieved in Corpus. When I called, LP said she couldn't relieve me until the
Connecticut got back from Trinidad because Billy Yawn was Mate there and he was the only one who would agree to sail on the
Massachusetts. I was not relieved until the 5th port afterwards. I missed my grandmother's funeral by days.
1976 was America's bi-centennial year. That summer, my in-laws rented a house in point Pleasant Beach, NJ for the month of July. It was a fun summer. I clearly remember sitting on the roof watching the fireworks on the 4th of July. The house was a split-level and we had the bottom floor to ourselves. Somehow my father-in-law wound up with a state-of-the-art table air hockey game which we played endlessly. My wife usually won. We were the 2nd house from the beach so we came and went to the beach at will. Surf fishing was a common evening activity although only one day sticks out. I wasn't going to fish that evening, not having had much luck anyway, until John, my brother-in-law, came running to the house saying the surf was full of fish. We grabbed our poles and headed up. There must have been a red tide or something similar causing the fish to come inshore because the waves were awash with fish. I caught something with every cast. Needless to say, we fed the whole beach that night.
The other fish story I remember also entails Johnny-boy. I bought a small dingy to use to row out past the surf break from which to bottom fish. One evening we loaded up the gear, guided the dingy through the surf, climbed in, then rowed a hundred yards or so offshore and anchored. The fish weren't biting and John grew restless so we heaved up the anchor and started back in. Just then, my wife showed up on the beach waving a McDonald's bag. John was not familiar with boats and being a growing teenager, to him seeing the McDonald's bag was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He immediately stood up, put all his weight on the rail and pushed off to swim to shore. In doing so he swamped the dingy which tipped over with all the fishing gear sinking to the bottom. I was able to retrieve the boat, the oars and the anchor but nothing else. This was the last time I took the dingy offshore and wound up selling it the next summer to neighbors back home. The best part of the story was that it gave me a good excuse to buy all new fishing gear.
We spent a couple of weeks in August visiting my parents in Kittery, ME. The routine in Kittery never changed. We'd start the day with a walk with my parents at Fort Foster. Then we'd hit the Kittery Trading Post before going home for lunch. It was back to Fort Foster in the afternoon for swimming and sand dollar hunting. The kids made friends with the neighbor's kids, Michael and Becky Hall, and would pal around with them. Occasionally, Mum and I would take the dingy and fish for flounder off the Hyde's house. My mother was the best fisherman I ever knew. Even though the fishing in the harbor wasn't good, she always managed to catch something.
 |
| Texaco Wisconsin - Call Sign WIGK |
My next ship assignment was the
Texaco Wisconsin, a sister ship to the
Oklahoma which had sunk in 1971. The Wisconsin was 661 feet overall with a 90 foot beam. She was built in 1958 at Sparrows Point, MD, had a summer DWT of 34,598 and drew 35'5.5." A full cargo was 280,433 Bbls. Texaco ulitized her as a black oil ship. Not only was the
Wisconsin physically different from the other tankers on which I'd sailed (she had 10 tanks across, not the usual 9) but she was also managed differently. By that I mean that the Captain, Vernour Claybourn, ran an unusual ship. For example, in the officer's messroom, the captain always sat at the head of the table. Not so on the
Wisconsin. First come first serve was the captain's directive. He didn't care who sat at the head of the table and would himself sit at any open seat. On the surface this appears "cool" but I thought this lack of order was misplaced since it showed up elsewhere on board.
There was a running penny-ante poker game after dinner in the officer's lounge midships. I had played a lot of poker with my older brothers growing up but didn't particularly like to gamble onboard because some of the officers were real card sharks. I grudgingly played most nights. One night in particular sticks out in my mind. While playing a hand of 7 card stud, I was dealt 4 aces, three of which were in the hole (ie - face down). The other players kept bidding having decent hands themselves. Finally all folded except the Captain and I and we kept raising each other. I knew I had him beat so I continued to raise the bet until he finally called. He had a full house. My pot was close to $50, not bad for a penny-ante hand.
I stayed on the
Wisconsin for a month before developing a disc problem in my back. I got off on sick leave, had the disc checked out - was misdiagnosed (turned out to be caused by a spinal fracture which would continue to flare up for years to come) - then joined the
Connecticut. Was only onboard a few days when the disc problem returned "in spades" and wound up being airlifted off the ship by USCG helicopter. Stayed home 3 weeks getting checked out and misdiagnosed again before rejoining the
Connecticut in Anacortes, WA. At the rental car booth in SEATAC Airport, there was one other customer, James Garner, the actor of
Maverick (and other tv show) fame. We chatted briefly. He was going visit his daughter. Upon rejoining the ship, Capt. Healey insisted we go out to dinner to sample a local fare called "geoduck" (pronounced gooey duck).. It tasted more like the pronunciation than the real name. Geoduck turned out to be a salt water clam that tasted like shoe leather. I didn't finish mine but at least I can say I tried it.
 |
| Geoducks - not very scrumptious |
