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I would like for all of you to be aware the the Naval Association donated a substantial
amount of us dollars to Cdr Mellitt before she departed - money was collected from branches in Cork,Limerick,Waterford and Dublin.
The money will be used for various projects on her route, - various projects that the crew will be involved in ie helping the poor etc.
26 Feb 06 LE Eithne P 31 Mar de la Plata
01 Mar 06 LE Eithne P 31 Buenos Aires
09 Mar 06 LE Eithne P 31 Montevideo
16 Mar 06 LE Eithne P 31 Rio de Janeiro
25 Mar 06 LE Eithne P 31 Fortaleza, Brazil
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
Eithne Crossed the Equator on Thursday, Becoming the First Irish Naval vessel to enter the south Atlantic, and the second to cross the equator(Though many dispute Niamhs crossing, as she altered her course to cross, and returned north shortly after.)
The good news is that there is a team aboard filming a documentary of the trip. When, or where it will be shown is not known.
Argentine Naval Cadets visited the Military College Curragh Camp in 1947. The following photograph was sent to me by a daughter of one of the Cadets in the picture.
It is with great pride that I can give you the Latest instalments of Eithnes Daily Journal, Courtesy of Cdr Mark Mellet.(via Naval HQ)
They have yet to appear on www.military.ie
LE EITHNE
DAILY JOURNAL
Captain’s Journal LE EITHNE – Friday 17th of February
The temperature has continued to rise and is now 30 degrees. Over the past thirty-six hours the wind has shifted from the fresh North Easterly we had North of the Equator to a more modest but freshening South Easterly wind south of the equator. These are the trade winds separated by the dreaded doldrums and so valued by sail ships over the centuries. Overnight new constellations that most of us have never seen were visible in the heavens. Just over the horizon the Arquipelago de Fernando de Noronha rises out of the ocean. The main island of the group appears completely mountainous and is covered in vegetation. The islands owned by Brazil have a restricted area surrounding them preventing fishing, hunting and any other action which might affect the environment. In previous times the islands were home to a notorious prison for Brazil’s most hardened criminals. We continue to get some assistance from the south equatorial current, which pushes west. Soon we will be smack in the middle of the Brazilian current, which will assist in bringing us exactly where we want to go along the coast to the river plate.
I left you yesterday as the pipe “Captain report to the F’ocsle” was made by the leading hand of the watch Courtney Gibbons. F’ocsle is an abbreviation for “forecastle” and comes from the time of sail when ships were built with a forecastle to the front of the ship, a main deck in the middle and an aft castle at the back of a ship. By the time I got there His Excellency King Neptune (Cook Brendan Fitzgerald), Queen Aphrodite (Petty Officer (PO) Michael Broderick), the court clerk (Warrant Officer (WO) John Walsh), the judge (Senior Chief PO Robbie Byrne), the doctor (PO Hull Artificer Tom Kennedy), the chief of police (Chief PO John (Bull) Hogan) and his Police assistants (PO Paul O’Brien, Cook Alan Corcoran, Seaman Niamh Connoly, Electrician Rory Galvin) were in situ. I requested King Neptune for the right of passage from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere. In reply King Neptune granted the ship and all her crew permission to cross the equator but required that those who had not done so before be required to undergo an appropriate imitation ceremony. On the flight deck the crew were assembled, and under the supervision of Lt Olan (the omen) O’Keefe, “a shellback”, being the only member of the ships company previously to cross the equator, the ceremony began. A representative sample of those who had not crossed the line before, known as “pollywogs” including PO Cook Eddie Staunton, SLt Fergal Tubridy, PO Michael Harrington, Seaman Niall Cremin, Mr Bill Tyson and PO Maurice Plant were assembled. The court was convened and each pollywog was brought before the court and their crimes were read out. As Captain it was my job to appeal for leniency for each, which I succeeded in doing for all but Bill Tyson. Bill is a civilian member of a TV crew who is making a documentary on the deployment and I just could not find any positive qualities that were sufficient to warrant a plea of leniency. All the pollywogs were initiated and required to take the doctors medicine, which consisted of eggs, and flour each was then thrown in the water. Just when I thought all was going smoothly things went bad and I found myself seized by the chief of police and brought before the court. My crimes, were so many, that they were unfolded on a roll of paper, which ran across the flight deck. There was no hope, the crew were silent despite a feeble plea for leniency which was discarded. I had to take my medicine and after being made jump like a monkey and being the only pollywog in uniform I was thrown in the water. So the ceremony which is hundreds of years old and carried out on merchant and naval ships when ever they cross the line was completed in the South Atlantic for the first time on an Irish Naval Ship.
Slowly but surely LE EITHNE’s decks are being transformed as the seamen work their way top down painting as they go. I try to avoid painting unnecessarily. Besides the environmental penalty, there is also the consideration of cost not to mention the time consuming drudgery associated with this task. For once however no body is complaining with perfect weather and the executive officer making sure everyone is properly protected with sunscreen lotion issued to all, the drudgery of the task is more than mitigated by the beautiful weather. It was always our plan to keep this task for the fair weather on passage – good thinking bosun PO Paul McCarthy.
In the logistics department menus for the various functions are being drawn up. We will host, diplomatic receptions, business functions, military functions as well as receiving calls of protocol and custom in each port we visit. The ship will be thronged by thousands of visitors and under the watchful eye of thousands more as they walk or drive by this piece of sovereign Irish territory flying the Irish flag proudly in each country we visit.
LE EITHNE has a huge heart, a great crew – we will make sure she looks the part because when all is said and done she is the best little flagship in the world.
Midday Posn (Z) Irish Time – 04 36S 031 43W
Dist to Cork – 3600 nm (nautical miles)
Dist to Mar De Plata – 2480 nm
Dist to Equator – 276 nm
Temp – a warm 30°C
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
Captain’s Journal LE EITHNE – Saturday18th of February
Progress continues to be good. The weather is again in our favour with an air temperature of 29 degrees and seawater temperature over 30 degrees. The East South East Trade wind has eased and is now moderate or light.
We are now just under a hundred miles off the Brazilian coast. The Brazilian current is a God send and giving us almost an extra knot in speed. Abeam to starboard, which is the right hand side of the ship as you look ahead (Port being the left), is Recife one of Brazil’s major ports. During our initial planning for this deployment this was to be our last Port of call before returning to Ireland but in consultation with HE Excellency Martin Green, Irish Ambassador to Brazil, it was decided to travel further up the Brazilian coast to the Port of Fortaleza. Here because of the work of Irish Missionaries the community have been very much influenced by Irish culture. Further up this coast is the entrance to one of the most spectacular waterways in the world – the Amazon. Enough of that, however, for it will be well over a month before we return to these waters to spend some time. So, lets save the storyline till then.
As I write Ensigns Sean Linehan and James Harding have taken the midday sight, which is a relatively straightforward way of getting your midday latitude. Combining this with a sun run sun they will be able to give me an accurate fix of our position without resorting to electronic navigation aids. Bill Tyson, who is doing the documentary, has been getting lessons from Lt Damian McCormack on Astronomical Navigation using a sextant. Declan the cameraman has just said that it is fortunate Bill has learned so fast or we never might have known that we were in Azerbaijan!
Overnight a number of work parties tackled some critical areas and by morning when the first gym customers (Senior Petty Officer (SPO) Sam Fealy and PO Micheal Broderick turned too on the machines, the hangar deck paint was already dry. Training was a little easier this morning and after getting it in we were ready for our usual breakfast of cereal, fruit juice, brown bread and tea. Most of our gym equipment is fitted with an electronic sensor, which can detect your heartbeat when you wear the appropriate chest strap. The beauty of this is that you can set your programme against your heart. My own preference is to exercise at 158 beats per minute, and the treadmill speeds up and changes elevation as necessary to keep me at that work rate. This is ideal especially if the ship has a list because of the weather. This morning I noticed that when both our Executive officer Lt Cdr Aedh McGinn and myself were exercising our speeds were down. Ultimately however its about work rate not speed and extreme care has to be taken exercising in this heat ensuring for example that sufficient fluids are consumed.
Seabirds are now common and the occasional whale has also been sighted. We normally make returns of all sightings to the Irish Whale and Dolphin group as well as University College Cork’s Coastal Marine Resource Centre, which is co-located with our Base on Haulbowline Island Cork. Monitoring cetaceans and sea life provides data that are of value in assessing environmental health. This is just one of the many services the Navy provides.
Another service we provide is the provision of fire fighting services to vessels in distress. Yesterday we carried out a major fire fighting exercise onboard. From my perspective on a day-to-day basis the greatest threats I face are on one hand the dangers associated with flooding as a consequence of collision, explosion, grounding or intake/valve failure and on the other the danger of fire. Every member of the ship’s company is a fire fighter. Using the state of the art fire fighting training facility at the National Maritime College Ireland, where the navy’s college under Cdr Tom Tuohy is partnered with Cork Institute of Technology under Donal Burke, we are put through our paces. There are no hostages taken in this training. In my last training exercise besides losing my own life I also jeopardised the lives of the fire fighting team I was leading. Embarrassing but that’s the place to do it and not out here when you may have to fight a fire for real. We have nobody to turn to and unless we can put out the fire there really is no plan B. Consider our stores, hundreds of tonnes of diesel, tonnes of high explosives and pyrotechnics as well as all the furnishings, deck stores and supplies all perfect fuels ready to complete the fire triangle. But we shouldn’t be pessimistic, however, we train every few days varying the scenario. Our equipment is good. Some of the facilities we have include fixed CO2 fire installations, numerous pump options to charge the fire main, state of the art breathing apparatus and clothing, thermal imaging cameras (TIC), modern fire alarm facility triggered by heat and or smoke, smoke generators for training and a range of standard hoses, nozzles, branch pipes and foam makers. While posing a huge threat in times of hull damage such as after collision, the sea however can be our saviour when it comes to fire fighting, with its water being pumped throughout the ships fire main to where ever it is required and then being applied as is or in conjunction with a foam making facility to good effect. One of our greatest resources is the level of our training coupled with having one the Navy’s most experienced fire fighting instructors CPO John (Bull) Hogan as our CPO Mechanician.
Our exercise scenario simulated an oil fire in no. 3 generator room. An initial investigation by the ship’s standing sea fire party which includes CPO John Hogan, PO Electrician Fiachra Kelleher, Leading Mech Dwayne (Giggles) McPhilbin and Supply Paddy Lawlor leads to their immediate attempts to bring the fire under control failing. The team closes down the area and leaves one member to brief the attack team while Chief Hogan recommends to the Bridge to proceed immediately to emergency stations. This entails all personnel reporting to pre-assigned stations, all equipped with their personal life- saving equipment. The ship’s damage control headquarters springs to life and under the direction of the ship’s Marine Engineering Officer (MEO) Lt Cdr Anthony Heery the scenario is assessed and our best resources are focussed on the problem. The ships organisation provides for damage control parties at the ship’s forward end under PO Maurice Plant and at the ship’s after end under PO Liam (Sammy) Leahy. Each party has a cross section of skills and technical expertise offering the MEO with a variety of options for tackling the fire. One of the MEO’s first actions is to assign a water boundary cooling team to the adjacent and overhead compartments in order to prevent conduction and likely secondary ignitions. His main weapon in this case ultimately comes down to a four-man attack team making an entry into the compartment where the fire is out of control. The team includes one member with a water-wall offering protection to the team, a fire fighter who fights through the water wall, a hose handler and a team I/C. Each is dressed in a fearnought suit of thick fire resistant woollen material together with anti flash gloves and headgear to protect exposed skin, a helmet, fire fighting gloves and a breathing apparatus which is managed to the second by a controller. The Breathing Apparatus controller, who is a little remote from the fire, monitors cylinder pressures and times calculating when the next attack team needs to relieve the 1st. In our scenario the first team consisting of Seaman Lee Coughlan, Seaman Robbie Wallace, Mech Alan Doyle and Mech Brian Hastings, were relieved by the second team consisting of Seaman Fergal McDonagh, Seaman Robert Buckley, Leading Seaman Gordon Cummins and Seaman Niall Cremin who brought the fire under control eventually extinguishing the blaze. Do we all go to tea then, no, sentries must be mounted and the situation monitored until temperatures have dropped and there is no risk of secondary ignitions. All equipment has to be inspected, recharged and replaced ready for what will hopefully be another training exercise. Of course throughout the whole operation the MEO must also be mindful of the amount of seawater used in bringing the fire under control. There is little point in bringing the fire under control only to present me with my other nightmare of a ship so flooded that we are unable to float.
Onboard, however, we have a number of personnel who in addition to other skills make it their business not to float, our ships diving team. Tomorrow we will pass over the Abrolhos shoal with a least charted depth of 10 metres – lets send the divers down to have a look – more about that tomorrow.
Midday Posn (Z) Irish Time – 10 22S 034 19W
Dist to Cork – 3970 nm (nautical miles)
Dist to Mar De Plata – 2100 nm
Thanks again to Cdr Mark Mellett for allowing me to have the first of the Journal.
And for a spot prize of absolutely nothing, who can tell me what a Shellback is.
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
During the last major celebration of Admiral Brown in the 1950/1960s (can't remember which) the Argentine Navy offered to train a small group of Irish cadets for nothing but it was turned down.
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