The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Kedging

Posted on | December 15, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Kedging in the Golden Era.
The Manual of Seamanship for Boys and Seamen of the Royal Navy, 1904 (a recent fathers day gift) defines kedging as follows: “Laying the kedge anchor out in a boat and warping ahead to it”. In more practical English it meant that sailing ships in the days before steam power was invented, used kedging as the only way to enter harbours at the heads of river estuaries or tight anchorages, if sailing was not feasible. How was it done? Well, a long boat with a bunch of strapping young sailors was sent out with a light kedging anchor and rowed ahead as much anchor line as the ship had, dropped the anchor and then a crew on the ship used the capstan to pull the ship ahead. The same book mentions that HM shipyards made anchor hawsers to a maximum length of 113 fathoms (678 ft), so one gets the impression that it was a laborious exercise to bring a ship to its final destination.

Yeah, I somehow don’t feel that fleeing the Surface Warfare community at my earliest convenience was a bad thing. When I say “Old Navy”, I’m referring to hard core types of the Ernest E. Evans category.

That’s actually a cheap shot at the SWOs. They really are doing their job. It’s the elected leadership that is running the fleet aground, along with everything else.

via iOwnTheWorld

Category: Military, Uncategorized

Comments

4 Responses to “Kedging”

  1. Finrod Felagund
    December 15th, 2011 @ 1:00 pm

    About the only thing that John McCain said during the 2008 Presidential campaign that I liked was how we know nuclear power is safe because we’ve been running submarines on it for 50 years.
     

  2. CAPT Pete in GA
    December 15th, 2011 @ 1:32 pm

    As a retired porkchop O-6 I understand – the Old Navy was the real Navy – not a politically correct bunch. Sad. 🙁

  3. richard mcenroe
    December 15th, 2011 @ 3:09 pm

    I’m less worried about green diesel fuel than I am about Aegis and Standard missile systems deadlined because we can’t keep them maintained and crewed…

  4. M. Thompson
    December 15th, 2011 @ 3:31 pm

    The PC crap and the desire for new ways to intervene in getting work done are what drives first term guys out.