I’ve been out in some violent environments where my pucker factor was so intense you couldn’t drive a needle up my arse with a mallet. I do stress and my temper gets really short, though I never panicked. I had a great crew, no babysitting required we knew our jobs and each other’s job that helps a lot accomplishing the mission
But we knew our limits. One time we were called out for a SAR mission in a boat that was not even close to being designed to handle the sea state we found ourselves in. Honestly, we all knew what it was going to be like before we left but, as the saying goes our orders demanded we go out, but didn’t saying anything about having to come back
. We all had similar thoughts going out but I sure as hell wasn’t going to admit defeat before we left the dock. So there we are in the Gulf Stream it’s pitch black making only about 2-3 knots against monstrous waves and wind action that blotted out the stars with another 50 plus miles to go. About two hours in Tony entered the cox’n flat and sort-a-kinda suggested that maybe RCC should get big a bigger boat out here.
Dude, that’s all I needed to hear and we were RTB baby, I was like fook this shyte. RCC called upon a 110 foot patrol boat to go out but their pussy LT said it was too rough for them. I think a 210 foot boat finally went out.