Floating Shorelines ... covered on NBC

Chesapeake Bay environmental issues often enjoy national coverage, thanks in part to our area being home to the Federal government.  Senators, congressmen, staffers, and their families, representing all 50 states, make this region their second home, and, like the rest of us, spend weekends and holidays enjoying the Bay.  So do the correspondents and staff at NBC's Washington Bureau.  MSNBC's website has a page dedicated exclusively to Chesapeake Bay stories and videos.

NBC's Lea Sutton reported on the floating shoreline/wetland project I participated in last month.  Here's the link.  Enjoy!

Floating Shorelines

Just a few strokes into our mile long paddle I quickly realize we’re in for more than we bargained for.  As a member of a kayak flotilla organized by Biohabitats, I’m towing a section of floating shoreline, an approximately two by five foot floating box of Bay grasses, from the Living Classrooms pier on South Caroline Street in Fells Point to the World Trade Center in the Inner Harbor.  The section of floating shoreline will be a small part of what is envisioned as a new model for our polluted harbors.  This morning, it’s the world’s most efficiently designed sea anchor.

Baltimore Harbor, typical of most of our country’s working ports today, is lined not by natural, living shorelines but by concrete and steel.  In fact, the only living shoreline in Baltimore is a 100 yard section along the grounds of Living Classrooms.  In just over a generation, the harbor has become so polluted that it is safe for neither fishing nor swimming.  The city agency responsible for monitoring the harbor recommends against even the slightest contact with the water.  The state of the Patapsco River has declined greatly since the first part of the 20^th century, when my grandfather would swim at the public beach in Sparrows Point.  It’s the lofty goal of local conservation and advocacy groups to make the Patapsco swimmable and fishable again by 2020.

Biohabitats’ floating shorelines are designed to help those groups accomplish their goal.  Built with recycled plastic bottles pulled from the Inner Harbor, each section is planted with native Bay grasses and plants, whose mass of roots which extend deep into the water help filter polluting nutrients and provide an instant underwater habitat that facilitates the growth of an underwater ecosystem.  The sections we are towing were constructed with the help of inner-city students during Living Classrooms workshops.

An hour and ten minutes after departing Fells Point, I duck under the chain barrier surrounding the World Trade Center’s landing, my section of floating shoreline still in tow.  The Biohabitats staff makes quick work of fastening all the sections together, and within an hour the Inner Harbor’s first floating shoreline is securely in place.  After answering several “what in the world are those” questions from the crowd of tourists that has enjoyed the show, I turn to paddle home.  Unencumbered, I make it back in fifteen minutes. 

Fireworks on the Fourth

While socializing on a friend’s balcony in Crystal City this past Tuesday, my wife and I spotted distant fireworks to the east.  Judging from the direction and distance, I’m guessing they were for a Bay Sox game, perhaps their first home game since the 4^th.  My wife’s reaction, seemingly out of the blue, was hysterical.  In an almost Dennis Miller-esque rant, she argued that fireworks should be solely reserved for their original intent ... celebrating our Independence Day!  I mentioned that they most likely pre-dated 1776, and given the fact that almost all are now made in China, they most certainly are of an other than American origin.  She was having none of it though.  So cute.

Turns out fireworks did originate in China, dating back to the 12^th century (some sources claim the 7^th or 9^th centuries), shortly after the invention of gunpowder, also in China.  The Chinese first used them to scare off evil spirits, then later to mark the Chinese New Year and other events.  The first reported use of fireworks in America on the Fourth of July dates back to 1777, although they had been used in the colonies for a long time prior at weddings and other special occasions.  No doubt though, Independence Day would be the number one response in the Family Feud topic “Fireworks are used to celebrate this occasion”.

We watched this year’s Fourth of July fireworks, as we did a couple of summers ago, from a boat, anchored in the Tred Avon off of Oxford.  It didn’t escape my wife’s attention, however, that this year’s show was on the third of July.  The Oxford, Easton, and Cambridge shows rotate each year in order to allow each town to hold the show on the Fourth. 

Fireworks alone don’t do much for me.  Add Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture or watch them by boat though, and I’m all about it.  There’s a communal feel when watching a Fourth of July show from a boat. And no matter how you arrive, whether it is by Hinckley or Jon boat, you know you share with your fellow boaters a love of both water and our country ... even if it is the third.

YP Memories

Tradition once dictated that after graduation of the senior class, midshipmen at the Naval Academy finishing their first year weren’t plebes anymore, but weren’t yet full-fledged youngsters until they saw the Chapel dome after returning from their summer cruise.  The tradition dated to the days when the brigade would depart en masse after Commissioning Week for their summer training aboard Navy ships, which would travel up the Bay and stop in Annapolis to pick up their mids.  The summer routine had long since changed by the time I finished my plebe year, but a first session Yard Patrol Craft (YP) cruise departing the week after graduation ensured I would experience one of the Academy’s oldest traditions.

Although I knew long days of watchstanding and hard work were ahead of us, I was excited to get underway knowing our itinerary included New York for Fleet Week, Newport for some shore-based damage control training, and finally Halifax, where those of us fortunate enough to have birthdays in the first half of the year (and were therefore 19) could legally drink.

Fleet Week in NYC was a blast.  Docked at South Street Seaport we took full advantage of our free time to get out and explore the city … when not on duty, of course.  What struck me most about the city was how incredibly friendly everybody was.  It wasn’t my first trip to Manhattan but it was the first time I had to wear my summer whites.  Nearly everywhere we went strangers picked up our tabs and admissions to museums were discounted or free altogether.  On numerous occasions guys would stop to shake our hands and ladies would hug us.  You’d half expect this today but this visit was nearly a decade before 9/11!

The next leg to Newport was considerably shorter than the first, but it was no less memorable considering the “visitor” we had.  Somewhere off of Long Island a great white shark shadowed us for several minutes just below the waterline.  From my vantage point on the bridge the shark appeared to be half the length of our boat!  Looking back it couldn’t have been that big though (50ft), right?  Newport, despite not being as liberty-intensive as New York, was full of good times, consisting mostly of hands on damage control training in the DC simulator. 

I’ve spent a lot of time on boats of all sizes and am proud to say I’ve only gotten sea sick twice.  The second time was a few years ago, working off-shore during marginable weather in a small, open boat, after a, um, night of excess and a cheese steak sub breakfast from Subway.  The first time was on the Newport to Halifax leg of my first YP cruise.  Ten foot following seas will do that to you, I guess.  I held out as long as I could but there was little I could do after watching our chief finally give in.  My watch section fared the best of the three, however, and we were rewarded by assuming our regularly scheduled mid-watch two hours early and turning over four hours late.  Halifax, with its picturesque town center and coastline, and its liberal drinking age, couldn’t have come soon enough.  It was in a Halifax bar late one night that my buddy Todd taught a table of mids and local girls the timeless drinking game, Zoom, Schwarz, Pafigliano.

The final leg home from Halifax to Annapolis was the longest of our cruise, allowing plenty of time for practicing squadron formations, man-overboards, and celestial navigation.  We spent our final night at anchor off of Greenbury Point, arriving before sunset and within sight of the Chapel Dome.  We were now youngsters …

Two summers later I would elect to do another YP cruise, this time, as a firstie, in charge of a watch section of youngsters.  The OIC of my YP was the female lieutenant commander who sponsored my roommate, and we had a mix-gendered crew of both midshipmen and enlisted.  NYC was the first stop again, this time with the squadron berthed next to the USS Intrepid.  A friend of mine on our boat, Joe, grew up in the city, so we had a personal tour guide.  Only last week Joe, who’s back living in Manhattan, reminded me of the “macerator incident”, of which I’ll say no more.  We just missed Fleet Week but our summer whites got us into Shea Stadium to see the Mets.  We finished the cruise in Boston, where our summer whites did the trick again, getting us into a sold-out Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play.  As luck would have it we also had a Boston native on our boat, who found us the best cannoli I’ve ever had walking through Little Italy on our way back to the Coast Guard Station one evening.

I didn’t service select surface warfare but my experiences and the lessons I learned from the two summer YP cruises helped define the leadership characteristics I took with me to the Fleet.  I wouldn’t trade those summer cruises for the world.

A New Ship in the Yard

Below is the unedited version of my article that appears in the June edition of PropTalk.  Follow this link to see it online (page 47).

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Spend any time on the waters around Annapolis and you’ll likely see one.   A common sight on the Severn River and middle Chesapeake Bay, especially during summer months, the 676-class Yard Patrol (YP) Craft have been serving the seamanship and leadership training needs of the Naval Academy for more than 20 years.  However, a new era began in April as the first craft in the latest class of yard patrol craft, YP 703, was delivered to the Academy, the last stop on her maiden voyage from C&G Boatworks in Mobile, AL.

The 703-class program began nearly 11 years ago with an initial requirement justification submitted by the Naval Academy.  A 2003 requirements document further specified the Academy’s needs and outlined the desired characteristics and capabilities of a new class of yard patrol craft.  Working closely with the Naval Academy over the next several years, PMS 325, an office under the Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), translated the Academy’s requirements into the technical language needed for an eventual Request for Proposal to industry.

USNA’s requirements were based on the needs of midshipmen training and the shortfalls of the current yard patrol craft.  The current YPs are nearing the end of their service life, and older systems are becoming more difficult and expensive to maintain.  Onboard systems, including navigation, propulsion, and control, do not adequately reflect those currently in use on the Navy’s modern combatants.  The need for mixed gendered berthing was also a consideration.

Frank McCarthey is the program manager at PMS 325 responsible for the new YP.  A former Coast Guard officer and graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, Mr. McCarthey grew up on and around boats and worked in a boatyard before college.  He is as uniquely qualified to manage the new YP program as PMS 325 is to oversee it, whose programs range from small, port security RIB boats to the Navy’s newest at-sea replenishment ships (a $7 billion program), and includes both foreign military sales and academic research vessels.

C&G Boatworks of Mobile, AL was awarded a contract for the first six new yard patrol craft, and construction of all six is underway.  The total contract value is $52.6M, or roughly $8.6M per new YP.  The Naval Academy has a need for 18 total new YPs.  “The overall strategy,” according to a NAVSEA statement, “was to procure a non-combatant multi-mission training vessel of small size and low total ownership cost using commercial-off-the-shelf equipment with a robust steel hull with capabilities beyond the existing YP 676 Class.”  Presented only with general characteristics of the new class, C&G designed a vessel to meet those requirements, and by all accounts they have succeeded.

Only slightly longer and wider than the current version, the new YP has a significantly larger displacement (225 tons vice 173), which is readily apparent in a side-by-side comparison.  Speed, range, and endurance numbers between the two classes are all similar.  The new boats don’t just look more like a modern combatant; they are equipped like one (minus the weapon systems, of course).  They have a state-of-the-art fully integrated bridge system with multi-functional displays for navigation, communication, and engines and systems monitoring.  The modern damage control system is reflective of current fleet designs.  Although the new class can accommodate a larger crew (40 vice 31), the systems are designed to require fewer operators, a trend that is Navy wide.  The Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, for example, requires a core crew of only 40, compared to an only slightly larger guided missile frigate that has a crew of nearly 300.

The Naval Academy is excited to take delivery of their new YPs, which will be used, according to an Academy spokesperson, “to provide midshipmen with valuable, practical, hands-on training in seamanship, navigation, naval tactics, communications, naval phraseology and standard procedures.”  YP 704 is scheduled for a September delivery, with the remaining four to be delivered in 2011.  And what will become of the current YPs?  “That’s a good question,” says Mr. McCarthey.  There may be interest from other service academies, universities, and foreign navies.  PMS 325 will manage that effort as well.

What impact will the new YPs have on the fleet?  LCDR Dennis Volpe (USNA ’96) has served aboard the USS SPRUANCE and the USS GETTYSBURG, and is scheduled to become the Executive Officer of the USS TAYLOR next spring.  He understands the advantage of a YP training environment more representative of current fleet capabilities.  “The new YP fleet provides future naval officers the opportunity to experience, understand, and experiment with modern shiphandling techniques and procedures that better prepares them for future combined Fleet exercises as well as combat operations at sea.”

A Showcase of Local Boat Builders

From the Indian canoes that long pre-date colonial times to the high-end custom yachts of today, the boats built in the Chesapeake Bay region have always been tailored to both their intended use and the characteristics of their environment.  As Maryland’s rich boatbuilding roots spread into the new millennium, it’s wonderful to still see so many local yards producing high quality, often custom or semi-custom boats with direct lineage to the workboats for which the Bay is famous.  A number of those local builders were represented at today’s Deadrise and Downeast Boat Show at Sarles Boat Yard in Eastport.  Today’s show was the first in a series of planned events for the region’s smaller builders organized by Eastport Yacht Company’s Tom Weaver.

Cape Henry Lighthouse

In 1789 the first U.S. Congress, located at the time in New York City, approved the construction of the Cape Henry Lighthouse, which became the first federal building authorized by the United States under the Constitution.  Built from sandstone mined from the same quarry that provided the stone for Mount Vernon, the Capitol, and the White House, the lighthouse guided mariners to the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay for nearly a century.  It was replaced by the “new” Cape Henry Lighthouse in 1881, which is still in use today.

Both lighthouses are located on Fort Story in Virginia Beach.  Ft. Story is an active Army base home to several Army and Navy commands.  No military ID?  No problem.  Your driver’s license (and a thorough vehicle inspection) is all you need to gain access to the base and the lighthouse visitor center.  The visitor center staff is extremely friendly and knowledgeable, and will happily time your climb to the top of the old lighthouse, where you are rewarded with extraordinary views of the surrounding area, including Virginia’s Eastern Shore and the oceanfront hotels and condos of Virginia Beach.