US Navy Jet Wash

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by rgranger

.... and what sort of environmental damage does this do to the seabed as it comes into port?

Lots of dead fish rotting under our dock

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Name a piece of new Military hardware that on fielding the press doesn’t call junk, According to the press, the AH-64, F-16, M1 tank and literally everything else was a complete failure and a unnecessary waste of the taxpayers money.

I know nothing at all about this ship though, but expect it’s problems will be ironed out, just like it is with all other systems.
Surprised it’s docking at a Civilian facility.

What a pointless vessel and completely terrible waste of energy.



The military spending is a waste. They should invest in small scale drones that resemble birds and fish. This would be an unstoppable force and they could build millions of these for the cost of these obsolete machines and never put any of their men in harms way.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by thruska

X2, i would have watched away from the dockage. Ive seen these beauties at dock in Mobile Alabama AUSTAL yard and on manuvers in the Gulf of Mexico.
Some of you just got a hard on for trimarans, lol
Your stress and overwork could more easily been avoided in my opinion [emoji106][emoji56]

I think that's the difference between myself and other boaters.

Stargazer is my home , my lifestyle and my responsibility!... Not just a toy

I purposely do not carry comprehensive insurance because, to my way of thinking, the buck stops with me and an insurance mindset dilutes that extra measure of caution, which I exhibit in terms of proper lookout, maintenance, research and training.

I protect her thru Typhoons, Storms at Sea and lately Stupid Arrogant USN Operators.

You cannot do that from the dock and my presence on board at the bow was not lost on the ship's crew, but also allowed me to adjust and balance those excessive loads.

I'm lucky in that I have a strong dutch built steel boat whose mooring bits are structural. Now that I know the extent of the USN arrogance, I will be better prepared when they leave, but I have already noted protest about their excessive wash.

[Ambler]

The excessive wash is an act of vandalism in my opinion.

[RaymondR]

Naval architecture is a pretty exact engineering science these days and the most usual reason for under performance is weight gain due to customer requests during construction. Having been caught out during an early construction the Oceanfast folks became fanatics on weight control even to weighing the dust from fairing operations.

The value of these thing with fairly good shallow water performance was demonstrated during the East Timor thing a couple of decades ago when a couple of the smaller ones chartered by the military were able to move over 800 tons of supplies each every 24 hours from Darwin to Dilli.

I'm old enough to remember the press furore and scathing denunciation of the F111 fighter bomber program in Australia, turned out to have been one of the best military purchase programs we ever participated in.

Now if you really want to see a masterly screw up in military equipment acquisition take a look at the Australian purchase of French nuclear submarine which the military is having them redesigned as inferior diesel electric submarines because of the ideological opposition to nuclear power of a certain segment of the political establishment.

It appears that the yachties in this case did an excellent job of preparing for and responding to a very adverse set of circumstances imposed by a much bigger vessel and are to be congratulated for their forethought, and skills.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by boat_alexandra

What a pointless vessel and completely terrible waste of energy.



The military spending is a waste. They should invest in small scale drones that resemble birds and fish. This would be an unstoppable force and they could build millions of these for the cost of these obsolete machines and never put any of their men in harms way.

The 'expeditionary fast transport' vessel cannot operate above sea state 5, it must stay in port or is relegated to holding postion if 'caught' outside in conditions above 5.

At sea state 5, maximum speed is 5 knots. Kinda negates the 'fast' appellation.

Of course, wars and emergencies always wait for calm seas.

Several of the later vessels were 'repaired' before they left the fabrication yard, because modifications to the original design proved to weaken the bows; those launched previously will all have to be refitted. At a cost of .35 to 1.2 million each.

These 'repairs' add weight that cost the ship about 30% in range, already seemingly short, at 1200 nm, pre-repair.

Cost is 200 million each. For a vessel that carries half the cargo as a conventional, monohull cargo ship of similar length at similar speeds (due to the design limitations of the cat configuration), with greater draft and beam.

Someone please describe to me of the mission these things are designed to accomplish, beyond the frivolous use of funding.

And spare me the technology or jobs 'trickle-down' excuses.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

The 'expeditionary fast transport' vessel cannot operate above sea state 5, it must stay in port or is relegated to holding postion if 'caught' outside in conditions above 5.

At sea state 5, maximum speed is 5 knots. Kinda negates the 'fast' appellation.

Of course, wars and emergencies always wait for calm seas.

Several of the later vessels were 'repaired' before they left the fabrication yard, because modifications to the original design proved to weaken the bows; those launched previously will all have to be refitted. At a cost of .35 to 1.2 million each.

These 'repairs' add weight that cost the ship about 30% in range, already seemingly short, at 1200 nm, pre-repair.

Cost is 200 million each. For a vessel that carries half the cargo as a conventional, monohull cargo ship of similar length at similar speeds (due to the design limitations of the cat configuration), with greater draft and beam.

Someone please describe to me of the mission these things are designed to accomplish, beyond the frivolous use of funding.

And spare me the technology or jobs 'trickle-down' excuses.

I have been learning quite a bit about these vessels via American friends who liaise with USN crew here in Subic.
They were shocked at the video I took of its arrival and sent to them

I think the conceptual idea of Fast and Transport has merit strategically.

If you need to move small amounts of specialist troops into a remote area with shallow docks, tight spaces and the able to shuttle back and forth quickly, from a mother ship will give you amazing flexibility.

However according to the crew, the speed/cargo design brief fell well short on trials and they have been reducing scantlings to save weight on subsequent builds.

Perhaps that's why they don't want tugs to touch them.

Also, I found out that they left same well protected dock last December because of an approaching Typhoon

Apparently their mooring bits are not strong enough to hold the boat in Typhoon strength winds.

So they left the dock, ran south below the Typhoon and returned 2 days later.

Often when a design brief contractually fails, remedial remedies usualy compromise operations.
This seems to be what's happened here.
But at least they tried!

[RaymondR]

Their original purpose was as high speed people ferries at which they excel.

They are used on the coast I cruise as tourist vessels. There is one used to transport tourists to and from Great Keppel Island and the mainland. It has a extendable, hydraulic ramp on the front. The crew drive it onto the beach, extend the ramp, the tourists walks of and on, dry footed, ramp retracts and off they go to the mainland.

One can see how vessels with this type of capabilities with a high speed dash capability would interest the US navy marine corps. Some western military organizations spend more time in humanitarian activities then in war making and the capability for rapid deployment onto the beach in distant remote areas is probably of interest to them.

Be mindful that these vessels are primarily used for littoral rather than deep sea work.

[Thumbs Up]

The first ones were the Hawaii Superferries. They were built in Alabama to satisfy the coastwise requirement. The people of Kauai never wanted the ferry, it was going to ruin the island with weekenders from Oahu. Hundreds of protesters got in the water on surfboards, prevented it from docking and forced it to turn around. This was a case of a public protest that actually worked. There was also going to be an obvious problem with humpback whale collisions. The entire project was scrapped (couldn't fulfill environmental impact review), the two ferries now belong to the military. They had been built with military transport in mind but we were told that was not true.