bad day at work

[Mike O'Dell]

The Old Man is absolutely and unequivocally responsible
for what happens on and to his ship. Period. Full-stop.
No further explanations are entertained. Screw-up and you're done.

One morning, in 1980 or '81, while ejoying morning coffee
in the cafeteria at LBL up above the UC Berkeley campus,
I watched the Captain of the USS Enterprise lose his career
when a Bay Harbor Pilot put the bow of the "Big E" into
a sandbar when she was coming into Alameda when she was
still home-ported there.

There is a small window when she could get under the bay bridge
without hitting the BART tubes lying on the bottom, so that
tricky part was managed OK. She was steaming parallel
to the face dock off a couple of hundred yards when
she stopped dead in the water. After half a minute,
a big plume of very brown water started streaming
forward down the port side (which was the side I
could see - it was almost certainly doing the same
thing on starboard). After a minute or so she started
backing down.

The article in the paper the next morning covered it
in some detail It crushed the sonar bulb on the bow
(KA-CHING!) when she went into a well-known bar.

The Old Man was releaved immediately when she got docked
and he retired shortly thereafter.
After a major inquiry, the Bay Harbor Pilot was discharged
and I believe prosecuted for dereliction of duty under
admiralty law.

	  -mo