SHAFT ALLEY FLOODSRon Buice HT3 DV
On 20 September 1972, the Atakapa was approximately 10 miles somewhere off the coast of San Salvador headed back to Little Creek. We had spent the last week in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba doing inservice training. I had the fire watch from 0400 to 0800 (the time was about 0530), and I was making my second round of the morning. I checked the water level in shaft alley and noticed it was time to pump the water out, a routine procedure, so I advised the person on watch down in the engine room. It was his job to open the Eductor valve and start the pumping process.
During the next hour making my rounds, I noticed the water level in shaft alley was not going down and may have even gone up some. I contacted the engine room and asked if he would make sure the Eductor valve was open. He explained to me (in typical sailor terms) that, of course, it was open and that he had done that job many times etc, etc...
When I made my report to the bridge that hour, I advised them that we were having problems pumping out shaft alley. The Officer, XO Keller I think, asked me if I thought we should stop the ship. I had never been asked that before, nor had I even heard of anybody doing this. I just told him I didn't think so at this time and would keep them advised. I was running all this through my mind: Stop the ship? Should the ship be stopped, and what good would that do? I had better get a second opinion. One of those "CYA" things.
FROM BAD TO WORST
I found an EM1 on the mess deck and asked him about this "stopping-the-ship" thing. Of course, he wanted to look for himself to see how bad it was--which was fine with me (the CYA thing again). By the time we got back to shaft ally and opened the hatch, it had been a good 45 minutes since I last checked the water level. It's safe to assume when you open a hatch and hear water sloshing inside the compartment, you know you're not going to have a good day.
It seemed that not only was the water not getting pumped out; but now the packing around the shaft had blown out, and water was spewing in all around the shaft. So, instead of the bilges below the shaft being full, the water was now up to the shaft, inside the shaft bearings, and still coming in fast. I think my comment was "Shit Fire". The first class grabbed the phone and told the bridge to "stop the ship". And stop we did! This seemed to get everyone's attention real fast.
A LONG DAY
This was an "ALL-HANDS-ON-DECK!" situation, to say the least. We got the fire pumps set up and started pumping out the water while another group tried to repair the packing around the shaft. However, the water coming in around the shaft would just force out any new packing they tried to place.
It was decided to put a diver over the side (yours truly) to put a temporary patch on the outside of the shaft to slow down the water so they could put in new packing on the inside. This may have looked good on paper; but let me tell you, it looked a whole lot different when I got in the water under the ship.
When this fiasco started, we were about 10 miles off the coast; and now, we were about 8 miles and closing. The Atakapa is dead in the water and bouncing like a cork. The bouncing didn't seem that bad until I put on my SCUBA gear, grabbed the patching material, and jumped over the side. Now, I'm in the water looking at this multi-ton bucking bronco; and I've got to get a hold of it somehow, and wrap this piece of plastic around the propeller shaft. I think my comment was, "Shit Fire".
The up and down movement of the ship was about 10 to 25 feet, which doesn't sound like much until you are the one going up and down--very forcefully, I might add. I dove down to the lowest depth that the ship was bouncing and grabbed the shaft as it came down and literally held on for dear life.
Normally, while descending slowly a diver must equalize the pressure in the inner ear. This necessary procedure is accomplished by pinching the nose and gently blowing, forcing air into the inner ear which equalizes air pressure in the inner ear to the water pressure pushing in on the ear drum; thus, preventing the ear drum from rupturing. Many times a diver must stop while descending to accomplish this task. This was no problem when I first descended slowly and watched the ship bouncing up and down in front of me. However, this changed once I grabbed hold of the propeller shaft. The up-and-down-force was so great it was pulling my mask away from my face; the pressure changes of going from 10 feet to 25 feet was difficult, if not impossible, to compensate. While holding on to the shaft, I pushed my mask against the shaft until it mashed my nose enough to somewhat clear my ears.
