Rescue at Sea 5: Man Overboard!

Maneuvering the boat in 12-14 foot swells proved challenging even for experienced mariners. It became crucial to ride the swells and the troughs just right. Miss the swell and the wave would carry our RHIB to ride over the top of the sinking sailboat. Miss the trough and personnel jumping between our RHIB and the sinking vessel would lose their balance and fall into the ocean.

The coxswain misjudged a trough between two waves, and Chief Personnel Specialist Steven Fortner fell overboard into the North Atlantic. With ocean temperatures hovering at 58 degrees Fahrenheit, everything else stopped and the prime effort became dedicated to getting Chief back onboard. In this picture - (wearing the blue life jacket) the Boat Engineer, Engineman Third Class Cody Greenwood and (wearing the white life jacket) the Boat Officer, Ensign Greg Page, drag Chief back onboard.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, preparations were underway to receive two mariners who had been exposed to the elements for several days. In the medical ward, the ship's Independent Duty Corpsman made preparations to treat dehydration, exposure, and hypothermia. In the Operations Office, the message center prepared the required OPREP-3 WHITE PINNACLE to send the necessary report to the President of the United States that a U.S. Navy ship had rescued foreign nationals from the high seas. The message writers got as far as line 3, the name of the vessel, and stopped. What was the name of the vessel? The Executive Officer got out his binoculars, looked carefully, and reported to the Captain "You're never gonna believe this one. The name of the boat is One Crazy Bitch."

This is the fifth in a week-long series of images detailing USS VELLA GULF (CG 72)'s rescue of sailing vessel One Crazy Bitch while steaming in the North Atlantic Ocean on May 22, 2006.

ISO 100
1/350 sec
f/6.7
400 mm