Sea Stories.. Lets hear some.

[Bubblehead Nuke]

I'll start with this one, I should have sent it to the Almanac.

Timex: It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

A Certain A-ganger was in the sail on a 688 performing maintenance and his wrist watch fell off. They looked for a while and could not find it. The presumed that it had slid out one of the limber holes (they let water into the bottom of the sail during a dive) and gone over the side. They closed up the sail and thought nothing more of it for a few weeks.

Then we get underway and dive.

It took a few hours but someone in sonar noticed that on the was a quick beep being made from time to time. It was not too loud and they were not sure what it was.

At 5:30 the next morning, the beeping went on for quite a while and they realized that they were listening to the alarm function on a digital watch. They also finally figure out that the other beeps are the 'hourly chime' function.

The questions start being asked:

Where is the noise coming from?

Can we be counter detected by the noise?

The truth comes out. The A-Ganger comes forward and explains to the CO what has happened and the presumtion that were made. He has lost his Timex G-Force watch in the sail and it has not gone over the side as they have hoped.

There is a call made on the 1MC. If anyone has a G-Force on them they need to bring it to control IMMEDIATELY. This watch was new on the market and there was ONE other of the same make on the boat at the time.

The question is asked: What is the rated depth on the watch? They read the other persons watch and a decision is made. They are going to crush the watch.

We rig for deep submergance and down we go. We are deeper than the watch is rated for and we wait.

BEEP goes the watch.....

.....an hour later it BEEPS again

.....another hour, and the chime is still working.

The captain decides that we are going to stay deep till the next broadcast.

Hours go by, and the watch refuses to stop working. By this time the CO is PISSED. The A-ganger is being glared at by his chief. We go, clear broadcast, and go down again. Maybe the quick cycling of pressure will brake the dang thing.

5:30 and the alarm goes off. Yep, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

The CO waits another few hours and then decides that we HAVE to go in and find the &^%$ watch.

We go back to Norfolk and the a-ganger (who is NOT a small guy btw) it told to get his butt in the sail and not come out till that watch is found. It took him HOURS to find it but he does. It is in perfect condition and he retrieves it.

He gets the watchband fixed and was going to write a letter to Timex. Remember when they used to have those commercials about the abuses that their watches took and kept on going? I think he would have had the best.

The problem was, back then they navy would only say that they go deeper then 400 feet and faster than 20 knots.

The timex was rated for 650 feet and if you know a 688, we exceed that by a good amount. He was not allowed to send it. I think it would have been a great commercial.

As for the watch, I think he still had it when he got out a few years later. I know he was proud of it.

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There you go, something funny. Anyone else have one to share?