FIX BAYONETS!

Scientists and their work can be interesting. Not that I’ve ever been involved in actual experiments, of course.

Icebreakers often act as scientific platforms for various scientists or transport them and their equipment to whatever site they will be using. Sometimes both.

Sometimes they’re a royal pain, as in the series of experiments that involved tossing quarter pound blocks of C4 explosive off the stern of the ship and measuring ‘something’. I didn’t really care what they were measuring. What I cared about was trying to sleep, since they did this at all hours of the day and night. A ship reacts to a near explosion by ringing like a bell, and I felt like the clapper.

Another incident required the scientists to set their equipment up somewhere on the eastern half of the St. Lawrence island, (Alaska) but they needed to run a cable from that location to the little settlement of Gambell, up on the Northwest corner of the island. According to Google maps, this looks to have been in the vicinity of about forty miles of cable to be laid. Setting up their gear wasn’t too bad. They had planned for a prefab hut which came in 4×8 foot sections of complete wall; studs paneling, insulation and all. We simply loaded these sections into cargo nets, rigged a sling under the helicopter and flew them out to the site, a few at a time.

We did almost lose one load. A sling load has to be watched carefully to make sure it doesn’t begin oscillating out of control, especially something large and flat that will catch the wind. One load got away from the crew for just a minute, swung up and bashed into the bottom of the hull. I probably would have ‘pickled’ the load before then, but they managed to get slowed down and back under control, and saved it.

After the hut was built and gear moved in came the problem of laying the cable. Forty miles of cable to lay, including a stretch that came down several hundred feet of cliff that cuts across the island. There are (were) no roads on St. Lawrence island and much of the terrain was the typical Arctic (semi) firm ground and half water. The cable came on reels that held 1/4 mile per reel, or, about 160 reels.

So one of the guys figured out a simple holder that could be (literally) wedged into the crew hatch on one of the helicopters. A reel of cable could be installed on this contraption and slowly paid out as the helicopter flew sideways to the left, just a few feet off of the ground. Every quarter mile land, test the section just laid and hook up the next section.

Although a fairly plebeian task, this required some fairly consistent and exact piloting skills. Too slow and you’d never get done. Too fast and, well, on one occasion they found out what happened if you got going too fast.

The reels always felt like they were screaming as they spun on our makeshift dispenser anyway and they hadn’t been designed for any high speed dispensing. So they weren’t balanced. As the speed picked up, they’d really start rumbling and then bouncing around. The one that got out of control actually jerked the rig out of the hatch but failed to fall out of the aircraft. It leaped back into the cabin and chased the crewman around while he tried to get his mike keyed and tell the pilots to slow down. Fortunately, the end of that section of cable showed up before the reel caught him They flew slower after that.

While waiting in between flights, (I was doing the hook ups of loads), a little six wheeled ATV full of an Eskimo (or Inuit, depending on your political correctness) family come roaring down the runway toward me. No problem there, as Gambell only had about one flight a week come in.

Dad was driving, several kids were in the seats and Mom was balanced clear back on one of the rear corners, which didn’t look real safe, but as they got closer, I could see why. They’d managed to snap off one of the front wheels and its axle.

Dad had seen the helicopter and, recognizing that the Coast Guard has a history in Alaska of being doctor, judge, face of the government and all around go to outfit, thought he’d ask if it was possible to get his ATV fixed by our welders out on the ship. I thought they could probably fix it but I wasn’t sure how we’d get it out to the ship, as it was too heavy for the helicopters to lift.

“Oh, well,” he said. “Probably easier to just get another one.” And away they went toward town, still happy, not at all upset. Easy going people.