Does the transom still leak excessively? SOP was to remove the boats from the harbor each Sept/Oct using a synchrolift and trolley to avoid ice damage and do hull maintenance. During the last winter at CRD21 we fiber-glassed the transom (rather inexpertly I'm afraid) to try and stop the steady leakage into the lazarette. Think the join between the chine / keel and the transom wasn't quite tight. Probably due to vibration and age. Not sure the transom was Philipine Mahogany like the hull, so there may have been rot in there.

We repaired some gunwale damage (on the starboard side?) at the round where the forward sweep of the gun'l merged with the almost straight side portion of the gun'l. 17 boat managed to run into us during a gunnery exercise. They had two or three hull planks stove in while we had one section of gun'l damaged. That was interesting since none of us had been trained to do repairs on a wooden hull.

17 boats OINC didn't have a sense of humor, and became somewhat annoyed when we painted a large band aid around the damaged portion of their hull.

Never did get quite comfortable with the startup sequence on the Napier Deltic main engines. Put the control station selector into RUN, put the throttle into neutral, unpin the governor, pull the boot off the turbocharger intake, spray starter fluid (Ether) into the turbocharger intake then rapidly put the boot back on and hold down the air start valve.

I was used to smaller Greymarine and larger Fairbanks Morse engines, so to me the Napier Deltic's sounded like huge barrels full of aluminum buckets rolling down hill until the engine started, then once it settled down sounded like a large sewing machine. I was never quite sure the governor would catch the initial acceleration surge and that it would run away. Never had one run away on me. Had to shut a main down once because of a fractured injector line spraying fuel, but outside of that and their appetite for oil (2135TH?) they always ran extremely well. I think 17 boat lost a main when it threw a connecting rod through the crankcase sidewall in NY Harbor. That must have been interesting.

Always had temp control problems since the main engine heat exchangers were designed for tropical salt water operations. The relatively cold fresh water in Lake Michigan would over cool the mains unless we restricted raw water flow feed rates. Tried various configurations of blanking plates but eventually we ended up simply periodically adjusting the inlet valve to restrict water flow to keep the mains at minimum operating temp.

Also had trouble with the inshore speed limits. The main engines did not like running below (if I remember correctly) 2,100rpm. They would run rough and overheat even when using better grade JP5 rather than regular DFM fuel, so when we had to operate around civilian harbor areas we'd usually have to shutdown one main rather than almost idle then periodically surge both mains.

Have a vague memory that PTF19, for some reason, didn't seem to like getting up on step as quickly as either 17 or 18 boats (CRD21 had PTF17, 18, & 19), but then would try to stay up on step longer than the other two boats. No idea why.

I don't remember many of the boats handling characteristics. Most of my underway time was below decks or up on the guns. That and I don't know what CRS2 did to her after we handed her over to them. 19 boats OINC was Lt Curtis J Froyen during my time aboard. He was the best of the CRD21 OINC's, even if he was a devout Notre Dame fan, and he would remember more. No idea where he is now.

Figures the picture with the best contrast would be the one with that horrible camo job the staff at NTC stuck us with. If I remember correctly, CRD21's CO (Commodore Johnson) lost a bet, and we ended up trying to camouflage the boats. There was no camo pattern known to man that worked on Lake Michigan. We called that particular pattern the amoeba paint job. Ick.

Will see if I can find any of my old pictures. No guarantee's since I haven't seen them for a couple of decades.