USS Marlinspike

Line handling. One of the most basic things done in the maritime industry. Simple loops, throws, whips and wraps used to moor or unmoor a vessel. Most people with any experience on boats and on the water have these simple skills, or at least people often assume they do.

Case in point, I enlisted in the United States Navy in 2003, shipped off to boot camp in Great Mistakes, Illinois in September to begin my nine weeks of “boot camp”. During this time, we learned Naval history, the types of boats and vessels of the Navy (Carriers, Submarines, Cruiser, etc.), some of the more common rates (BMs, MMS, DC etc), the ranking structure, and other bullshit. Of course, the majority of us being E-1 “pukes” saw an E-4, 3rd class, Petty Officer as a god because they made us believe that the almighty single Chevron represented power or superiority.

During the course of our initial training, we were sent to a large room known as the USS Marlin Spike, a makeshift pier and ship designed to teach us proper line handling and mooring/unmooring. The “ship” was basically a single port side with three bollards. Each bollard had an eye of a 3” mooring line around it with the line plummeting to an assigned cleat or bollard on the makeshift pier.  The idea was simple. We were to split into 2 groups and assigned to either the pier or the ship. We were told to demonstrate either removing the line or retrieving the line. Simple, right?  Each person on the ship side was to remove the eye from the bollard, raise both hands and yell “CLEAR!” as the mooring line would crash into the “water” below while the pier side partners were to take the line  up from the water. Once this was complete, the pier side person would attach a heaving line, (basically a weighted bag) to the line and attempt to successfully throw it back to the ship person, and allow them to heave it back through the chock and successfully place the eye back over the bollard, completing the assigned task at hand. The instructors (some 2^nd class and 1^st class BMs) made it look so easy. Like any knucklehead off the street can do it. Can’t be that difficult, can it? How heavy can line be?

I was assigned to be on the ship side of the operation. We are all wearing life jackets, and hard hats. Perhaps just to play the part, or for the amusement of the instructors, but there we were in a sea of orange buoyancy.  I patiently await my turn. I’m watching the process be repeated time and time again. Seeing the mistakes being made and hoping to learn from them. Finally, I am up. Standing in front of the bollard, decked out in my lifejacket and hardhat, I await the instructors signal. Its go time. I lift the eye of line, (which I learned is quite heavier than expected), raised my arms and yelled “CLEAR!” like the obedient sailor I was brainwashed to be. The line quickly ran through the chock and into the pseudo water. My pier side accomplice struggled to recover the line, learning that heaving a heavy ass line was hard work. Imagine it soaking wet. One hand in front of the other, they finally heaved the line onto the pier while the 2^nd class instructor was yelling “HEAVE THE LINE” repeatedly. Now feeling the pressure, they attached the heaving line, and attempted to toss it to me. I am standing approximately 20-25 feet up from the pier. They throw the bag like an outfielder trying to make the out at 1^st base. THUD – it hits the side of the boat and falls back into the water. Try again. The wind up and the pitch. This time the weighted bag is flying directly at my face (some might say that bags in the face is a Navy tradition). A little shift to the left and it misses my face, and hits me in the right shoulder, breaking its trajectory and falling to deck. I grab the weighted bag and began lifting the mooring line with the attached heaving line. I can feel the weight of the mooring line beginning to show as it escalates further up the hull of the ship. All eyes on me, I am now feeling the pressure. Hand over hand, I finally collect the spliced eye of the line, align it through the chock, and place it over the bollard. Mission Complete. Line handling complete. I felt like an experienced sailor, even after one measly attempt using a dry line and the no effect from outside elements. Stupid seaman recruit. I graduated boot camp, completed my required post training and sent off to the fleet. I was now an official United States Sailor.

My orders were to the USS Sacramento AOE 1. A fast combat, support ship based out of Bremerton, WA and also set to decommission in about a year, after 40 years of service. My first assignment onboard was to complete my 90 days of mess cranking duty. All sailors are required to do it at some point in their career, so I completed that obligation right away. Upon completion, I was assigned to Engineering department to work in the main machinery room with the MMs, and BTs. Since I was an undesignated seaman, they put me where I was needed. I eventually struck rate as a Machinist Mate because that’s what I was being trained for. I spent my remaining time onboard the Sacramento working in the engine room, performing my job and not once did I ever touch a mooring line. The boat herself constantly conducted UNREPS which required delicate line handling abilities, but none of which I was a participant of.

After 10 months aboard the Sacramento, she was decommissioned and I was off to Machinist Mate A school, returning to Great Mistakes, Illinois. My short time there, I never touched a mooring line. In fact, it was never even mentioned. My job was to make the ship move, not to remove or place the restraints. I received my next set of orders back to Bremerton, WA to join the newly change of home ported ship USS John C. Stennis CVN 74, moving from San Diego, Ca. I was immediately assigned to the Reactor Department to perform the duties in which I was trained to do. None of which included handling mooring lines or tying off a boat. I served aboard the Stennis for 3 years. After many months at sea, and an 8 month deployment, in 2007 my obligation to the United States Navy was done. Yet, I still hadn’t touched a mooring line or thrown off the ship from the pier. At this point, I didn’t care.

Fast forward to 2012, where I gained employment for the US Maritime Administration at the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet as a Preservation Specialist. We were assigned to preserve and maintain old Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine and MSC ships all anchored out in sequential rows in Benicia, Ca. Everyday we would require transportation to and from the rows of ships using a Moose Boat or Safe Boat. Each destination, would require someone to tie the boat up alongside the pier so other personnel could get off or on. I would often be the one to do this if I was onboard. Finally, that fateful day in boot camp some 9 years ago is going to pay off, and it’s even easier. Wait, there’s no eye on this line? Now what..umm. Just wrap it around the cleat and hope for the best. Timmy Johnson, the ex-Navy BM and now our boat operator, is showing signs of frustration. He is cussing, yelling and ridiculing me . “Goddamn it, weren’t you in the Navy!” he would aggressively say to me as he would show me the correct way to do it while mumbling obscenities under his breath. Quite different than that day I can remember onboard the USS Marlinspike. Timmy would go on to show me the proper way to secure a boat, at least to his liking. Often times, a different operator wouldn’t approve of the way I secured the boat via Timmy’s preference. They would demonstrate their expectations and would also say to me “weren’t you in the Navy, you should know this?” or “where the fuck did you learn to tie a boat off?” Everyone assumed that I knew line handling techniques because I was in the Navy. Like it was a standard staple of every sailor that was in. I mean, I guess it probably should have been, but apparently not. I can turn the fuck out of some wrenches though.

I eventually learned and remembered every boat operator’s preference when it came to tying off the boats, whether it was short or long term. Some liked it wrapped with many figure 8s, others with a few simple wraps. Whatever the preference, I met it. Never the less, I had that shit down, and my training in the Navy really had no significant role. There were no heaving lines, weighted bags or spliced eyes. Just a couple of quick wraps and pulls to secure the vessel.

My line handling skills have gotten better over the course of the years. They kind of have to. I am now on deck aboard a federal working vessel in Northern California. Despite having duties with cranes, heavy machinery, and specialty equipment, I am really just a deckhand. While some of the line handling techniques I learned at Suisun Bay don’t necessarily comply here, they still are beneficial. Over the years with this organization, I even have learned how to splice eyes into lines and tie basic sailor knots which was never required in the Navy and for MARAD. People still often say to me “you didn’t learn this shit in the Navy?’ but I always tell them that I wasn’t no topsider. I worked in the lower regions of the ships. In closing, not every sailor in the Navy is exposed to line handling. I literally had one experience in my entire Navy career, which really had no bearing in my short military career. On a few occasions in my recent years, I have demonstrated retrieving a mooring line or heaving a line to and from the pier but I believe that experience came post Navy. I can always hear Timmy Johnson yelling in my ear as I am mooring the boat or managing line in any capacity. Every word of George Carlins 7 words were infamously belted out, but all I can do is laugh about it now. Timmy is a good dude, and I still maintain a friendship with him today. I take pride in my Navy years, even if it wasn’t throwing lines off boats and or securing the vessels upon coming home from a long and arduous journey.