Re: MTD Yardman Transaxle Rebuild
AHH ..UHHhh I heard YOU & a few compadres got a lil snockered one evening and decided to take a Navy sub for a " JOY-RIDE "
and this was the end result of that brief excursion ..WELLLLL ????
Boo,
While in the Navy, I will admit to the following unauthorized "excursions" :
1.) A rather unexpected ride down the Thames river in New London, CT on a "camel". (You have to know what a "camel" is in Naval parlance to get a picture of this.) Rescued by the USCG.
2.) A evening 'cruise' around Long Bay off Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas USVI in a "borrowed" sailing pram.
3.) An aborted effort to - (hmmmm, borrow - no . . . liberate - no . . . ahhh hell, might as well own up to it - "Steal" an Italian YO. (Yard Oiler - which is a small vessel used to refuel ships in the harbor.) This harbor happened to be in Naples Italy.
4.) A REALLY STUPID effort to take over an Italian Frigate! This came about because we couldn't figure out how to start the YO and the Frigate was already running.. (Indicated by the smoke coming out of the stack.) Unfortunately, the Frigate was also full of Italian sailors, none of whom took our effort to confiscate their ship lightly! Admittedly it did take several minutes to wake them all up at 0200, but once they WERE awake, they were really pissed! There must have been a couple hundred of them and only about 60 submarine sailors (off three different submarines) - all coming back to their boats following the 1967 Submarine Birthday Ball in Naples and thus all drunk as skunks. I happened to be with my new best buddy (BFF-in todays world) named "Lurch" who was a Torpedoman off the 'Grayback'. We had made it all the way to the bridge before the schitt really hit the fan, and when the lights all came on and Italians came out of everywhere, (sort of like kicking a hornets nest!!) Lurch and I jumped overboard and actually escaped! My Corpsman later told me I'd probably die from Hepatitis from swimming in Naples Harbor, but I'm still here some 50 years later!!
5.) It would take too long to tell this entire story, but we actually did take over an English lifeboat when we were in Palermo, Sicily. The Limeys had raided us early one Sunday morning, but we were able to lure them close enough to us so that several guys were able to leap into their lifeboat and throw them overboard. Later we were also able to fly a homemade flag from their bridge that stated: "This ship has been captured by the USS Cobbler SS-344". But we didn't really capture their ship, just one of it's lifeboats, but that was their fault, they started it. I also 'flew' a Navy 'white hat' (although nothing in a diesel submarine is truly "white" for very long) off their jackstaff.. But that's yet another part of this lengthy story.
I never - I repeat, NEVER! Was involved with the misappropriation of a submarine, US or otherwise. All submarine cruises, deployments and 'runs' were fully authorized by the government.. . . Of course I can't really tell you about any of them, because if I did, they'd kill ME!!
Oh, as an aside, - not to my involvement with the misuse of someone else's boats, but to the derring-do of others - specifically Aussies in this case.. (Note: Never, NEVER go drinking with Aussie's or Limeys, for that matter) When we (USS Sailfish SS-572) were in Hong Kong Harbor, two Aussie divers swam across from their ship in the middle of the night and painted the likeness of a pink kangaroo on our aft rudder. Our topside watch at the time was severely chastised over that incident.
And that, children, is all the time we have for Sea Stories tonight...
Roger Ramjet ST1/SS
Submariner Extrodinaire
1964-1974
laughing