Rescue at Sea 6: Boat Coming Up!

The process of raising a RHIB can be complicated, especially in heavy seas. The RHIB comes alongside the warship as the ship lowers the hook that raises the boat. The coxswain matches the ship's speed by throttling the boat's 500 horsepower Cummins diesel engine to ride up and down the swells. As the coxswain keeps the boat in the same relative position, the gunner all the way forward grabs the bowhook and attaches it to the bow to stabilize the bow, the boat engineer grabs the sternhook and attaches it to stabilize the stern. When the hook is attached to the steel cables on the boat and the bowhook and sternhook are made up fast, the Chief Boatswain's Mate on the deck above gives the simultaneous command to the davit operator and the warning to everyone around "Boat coming up!"

The davit operator engages the hydraulic winch and the gears grind to lift the 1-ton boat out of the water with its crew. While the boat is suspended in midair by the davit winch, everyone should stand on the seaward side in case the hydraulic winch should fail and the boat ends up back in the water, personnel will not be trapped between the RHIB and the steel ship.

Here USS VELLA GULF (CG 72) Operations Officer, LT Glenn Powell USN, serves as safety observer in the center of the picture standing on the deck. He's wearing the white life jacket with CG 72 OPS on the back. At the top of the picture is the Chief Boatswain's Mate in the white life jacket and at the bottom a Deck Seaman in the blue life jacket. In the boat - Ensign Greg Page U.S. Navy, the boat officer, is seated in the front on the port side, with one of the two rescued mariners seated directly behind him. At Greg's knees, kneeling on the engine cover, is the gunner and rescue swimmer, Gunner's Mate Second Class Travis Smalley, U.S. Navy. The coxswain reaching up to grab the hook coming down is Seaman Michael Masse, U.S. Navy, and immediately to his left, Chief Personnel Specialist Steve Fortner, back onboard after a swim in the ocean. Seated in the back right corner of the boat is the boat engineer, Engineman Third Class Cody Greenwood, U.S. Navy. And finally, huddled in the starboard corner of the RHIB is the other of the two Dutch Mariners. He was in worse shape of the two; suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, and unable to stand to move to the safer side of the lift operation. The winch hook can be seen coming down between Seaman Masse and Chief Fortner; it too swings back and forth like a pendulum as the warship pitches and rolls in the swells.

This is the sixth in a weeklong series "Rescue at Sea" of USS VELLA GULF (CG 72)'s rescue of the Dutch sailboat One Crazy Bitch in the North Atlantic Ocean, May 22 2006.

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