Perhaps luckily, 251-ft ships can’t talk – but the crew
of the Kittiwake certainly can, and members from each era were invited by the
Cayman Islands Tourism Association to share their own stories of the trip.
Of those which are printable, first prize was taken by
John P. McGrath of Chesapeake. Virginia. During his service between 1980 and
1983 he was at various times chief engineer, supply officer, habitability
officer, communications officer, officer of the deck underway and the
euphemistically-named SLJO. In 1981, chief engineer McGrath was standing watch
on the midnight to 0400 shift. Suddenly at 1am all the lights went out and the
ship stopped still. Dead silence.
He rushed below decks to the main engine room to find the
chief electrician, who told him that the fuse had blown.
“He had just picked a pile of paper off of the deck and
he showed me that the pile was a very old, waxed wrapped fuse about the size of
a stick of dynamite.
“When I got back to the bridge I saw the chief officer
and executive officer sitting in their respective bridge chairs. Of course the
first question was, “Did you find the problem, engineer?” I said yes and told
them both that a fuse had blown and caused the ship to lose all power. The
captain’s face started to get red and the XO leaned over his chair and said,
‘Engineer, now is the time to explain how a fuse could cause this United States
ship of the line to go dead in the water in international waters!’”
Mr. McGrath said that he pulled the wad of paper out of
his pocket, gave it to the executive officer and told him that this was all
that was left of a main propulsion fuse that literally fell apart due to
vibrations and caused an overload to cascade in all electrical circuits, causing
complete failure of the ship’s electrical systems. Equally luckily, a new fuse
had been located in Supply, and the Kittiwake was readied to get under way five
minutes later, avoiding a fuse blown from the captain too.
Schedule:
Sunday, 5 December
10am-2pm: Sinking
6-8pm: Cocktail reception, silent auction and
presentations.
Tuesday, 7
December
11am: Open to the public
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