delliottg wrote:
I took care of a couple of Mike-8 boats that were lighterage on a USNS ship for a while. Knew nothing about them. Just figuring out how to start the engines was a challenge. The batteries were dry, needed the acid added and to be charged, so we had to start them with air. I think there were six air cylinders you had to pump up by hand, which took forever. The skipper refused to let us start them because he didn't want the exhaust all over his decks, so we had to figure out how to get both inlet water to cool the engines and exhaust elephant trunks run over the side. Everything was cobbled together, but it worked, and they eventually kitted out the rest of the MPS ships with the stuff we "invented". We only got to run them once, in a little port in France, but that was fun even if was marines running them, they still let us drive for a while.
I always thought you could make a decent living in AK with a Mike-8, but you'd probably be better off with a smaller ramped boat. I wonder if you could keep busy enough to feed two Allison V-12 engines which have a terrible thirst for diesel.
Can always get a Mike 6 or LCVP. Either could carry a car.
In Friday Harbor at the marina, they used to have a LCVP they used as a garbage scow.
Loaded it up with trash, took it 4+ miles out, and dumped it somewhere.
That's frowned upon these days.
In the early 80's we used to dump oil once we got 20 miles out.
Some officer forgot to give the order when we were going back to 32nd Street, so they pumped it out about 3 miles from San Diego.
Fishing boat radioed the Coast Guard and reported it. Hahaha
Someone got a big ass chewing.
