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Article
Oh The Humanity
by
Brian Eliassen
 |  | | The SoDak sitting at the proper waterline but pumping like crazy due to the swells. |
I thought about entitling this, "Ever Had One of Those Days?" but I decided it wasn't descriptive enough and not everyone had 'one of those days'. Ty Siouxpancic thought it should be entitled "The Terrible Day" but again, it wasn't terrible for everyone. Another good one was "May 11th, 2002...A Day That Will Live In Infamy!" but I figured that was too pretentious. So, I settled on "Oh The Humanity!" which is pretty accurate. But, enough with the titles, on to the story for this most unusual day.
As luck would have it, I slept in on Friday until 1530 hours. This meant, despite my best efforts, that I was unable to get any sleep Friday night before the battle. Realizing this was going to be the case, I finally crawled out of bed at 0730 and began packing the car. For this trip Chris Taylor, Ty's nephew, was planning on riding with us to the lake. Now, I've heard this before and I always pack the Bronco for a three person trip to the lake only to find out that "Chris couldn't make it as he was sleeping in" or some other excuse. Despite being told that Chris "really" was showing up, I had my doubts but I still allowed space for him on the off chance that he actually showed up. Much to my surprise, not only did he show up but both he and uncle Ty showed up early. A major event and this should have told me that something just wasn't quite right with the universe.
 | | The SoDak's stern looks low but that's typical during a turn such as this.
The Brooklyn and Nassau manuever for firing solutions. |
May 11th, 2002 appeared to be just another day at the lake but things started happening right away. Upon arriving, David Asman and Mark De Antonio were standing by their trucks away from the lake. This is never a good sign. A family was fishing right at our normal launch point. Well, that's not entirely accurate as our usual launch point was about four feet underwater. However, the area they were fishing in was the only area that wasn't crowded with weeds so SCRAP had to make a sacrifice and decided to launch ships in the weeds away from where they were fishing. As such, it was decided to allow for the "30-second moss" rule. About ten minutes before battle started, I noted the wind started to blow. A welcome addition considering how warm it was. However, this was to have a profound effect on the days events.
SCRAP, while having a large number of ships ready to battle, seems to be unable to get more than eight ships on the water at any one time. This was no expectation with only seven captains showing up with five ships. Maybe the monthly battling schedule has rendered the membership complacent. Perhaps people can't remember when SCRAP didn't have a place to battle less than a year ago. Oh well. One of these days we'll break the mystical eight ships on the water ceiling.
With only four ships currently at the lake and ready to battle at 1000, it was decided to break the teams down as such:
Team Lonely Battleship
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 6 26
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Team Everyone Else
Captain Ship Units Speed
=======================================================
David Asman Nassau 4 28
Chris Taylor Inflexible 4 26
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 3 23
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Yep, everyone against me. This isn't all that unusual considering the capabilities of the SoDak and it's past performance. Besides, this has happened in the past due to a lack of attendees.
Right before the beginning of the battle, I had the following tactical analysis flow through my head:
- Brooklyn : I can't catch it.
- Nassau : Set up to deal with ships that chase it.
- Inflexible : Inexperienced nephew captaining Ty's ship for the first sortie and unfortunately for him, it's the only ship that could be considered a target.
|  | | The SoDak heads under the waves. |
You can guess the outcome...I targeted the Inflexible. During the battle I noticed some disturbing ship issues with the SoDak. It was "plowing". It's hard to describe and about the only way to describe it is to say the ship felt like it was about to sink the entire sortie. This despite only a moderate pump stream. I found I had to occasionally head into the swells (which were noticeable) in order to pump out. I also noticed that I seemed to be affected by the swells more than the other ships. This is very unusual in that the SoDak sits so low in the water and has a very heavy battery admidships so it's inherently stable. At times, I saw the SoDak rocking up to 40 degrees off center. Now, this is VERY significant for the SoDak. I started wondering what would happen if the ship capsized. Questions of whether the battery would fall out of the ship and if it did, what would it destroy in the process started to run through my mind. Despite all of this, I was able to keep pressure on the Inflexible and when I noticed his pump stream ceased, I knew it was over. Ty set the Inflexible up with a single switch. When he turns the switch on, everything activates in the ship including the pump which runs all the time. I yelled to Chris, "Head back to shore!" as he was quite a ways out. After executing a 180 degree turn, the Inflexible rolled over and sank. Ty wasn't happy. Especially since he had to get his own ship rather than his nephew. Where the ship sank, Ty had water up to his armpits. Fortunately, he didn't have to totally submerge to retrieve the ship as he was able to do a "toe lift". The sinking effectively ended the sortie and everyone took their ships off the water.
After getting the SoDak into the pits, I noticed a 1"x0.5" below the waterline ram hole. After checking with the CD, I was told I could patch this. I figured this explained why I was having so many problems on the water as the SoDak was relatively undamaged.
 | | The SoDak's cannons still fire underwater while
the superstructure helps mark where she went down. |
There was quite a delay between sorties as a group of us were attempting to get Ty's Inflexible back on the water. Unfortunately, the Inflexible had suffered a "cascading failure". This is when a failure triggers another and another, etc. The pump Ty had put in the ship was a "short" Johnson surplus motor. The can on this motor was smaller than the normal Johnson HC600 everyone uses for their drives but I can attest to its performance. Ty filled up the Inflexible during the April build session at my house and the motor pumped out the ship very quickly. It looked like a winner but I told him to be careful and asked him about the motor. He didn't have any details on it so I offered him one of my Tamiya 540's. He was confident the little Johnson would work. He was wrong. Upon investigation, it appeared that the Johnson was a 3 volt motor. One of the windings in the motor had melted down completely causing a direct short within the motor. This caused the main power switch to fry and unsoldered one of the wires connecting it. That means the wire exceeded 470 degrees F! He's lucky he didn't have a fire! After using a spare 540 I happened to bring to the lake and bypassing his switch, he then discovered his rudder servo was acting like it had water in it. That pretty much ended his battling for the day as the second sortie was just starting.
While working on Ty's ship, the Mikey and John Riese show arrived. Seems they got lost and took the wrong freeway. D'OH! So the second sortie looked like this:
Team Lonely Battleship
Captain Ship Units Speed
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 6 26
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Team Everyone Else
Captain Ship Units Speed
=======================================================
David Asman Nassau 4 28
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 3 23
Mikey Riese Yavuz 4 26
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|  | | Ty Siouxpancic, being already wet, retrieves the SoDak. |
The second sortie started off pretty much like the last one ended. The swells were playing havoc with the SoDak and everyone else was less affected by the seas. Since the Yavuz took the place of the Inflexible, it became the main target. The pump on the SoDak was on maximum duty most of the time with the ship doing uncharacteristic rolls with water flowing over the decks almost constantly. This isn't a good thing. As with the first sortie, the pump outlet kept going underneath the water which is not something you want to see on your ship. I decided to get a good look at the ship and sailed it directly at shore. Unfortunately, I realized that I had sailed on the wrong side of the border we established before the battle started so I had to back out. This wouldn't normally be a problem except that I received the worst mossing I've ever had after a waterlogged fibrous reed wrapped itself around the SoDaks props. It was so bad that the ship was completely immobile. I called "30-second moss" and then counted to 35 slowly just to make sure I had over 30 seconds. During this time, the opposing team took the opportunity to shoot at the defenseless SoDak. I made a mental note of who they were for future reference. Anyway, when I went on moss check, Mark De Antonio went out and got the SoDak for me as it wasn't going anywhere with all that material around the props. Fortunately, it was only 10 feet from shore. A single look at the props told me I would need to take it to the pits to clean it up. About three minutes later due to the quick use of a pair of needle-nose pliers, the SoDak was ready to hit the waves again. A quick inspection showed very little damage to the ship and I became convinced it was a wave period issue with the swells and the length of my ship. After pursuing people and firing off my rest of my ammo, I called "five" and started doing some tests. Fortunately, one of my opponents was out of ammo so life was less complicated. The SoDak was, indeed, being thrown around more than the smaller ships. I also noted a nearly continual flow of water over the stern of the ship. The deck seal on the SoDak is very good being that the deck sits on rubber gaskets but the turrets were wide open. I saw water entering the turrets due to the excessive rocking motion. This is where I made my single greatest mistake. I should have parked it facing into the swells and just let it pump out. The remaining opposition could put more holes in it but should not be able to sink it. However, I didn't do this and I ran. Big mistake. Soon it was clear the SoDak was going to have its first California sink. In fact, the only previous sink for the ship was on Thursday morning at Nats 1999. Three years between sinks...not too bad. Fortunately, when the SoDak sank, I was on my way back to shore so it sank in knee deep water. Ty volunteered to retrieve it as he was already wet. Thanks Ty! Taking the ship back to the pit area, I started the usual "post sink routine" which I really haven't developed yet as the ship doesn't sink that often. After a quick check, I noticed about five belows. VERY minimal damage for this ship which normally takes about 30-40 before it's in danger of sinking.
After cleaning it out, I counted the holes and after compiling all the data, these were the results:
Team Lonely Battleship
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
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Brian Eliassen South Dakota 31 5 5 0 1000 1685
======================================================================
Total 1685
Team Everyone Else
Captain Ship A O B Pen Sink Total
======================================================================
David Asman Nassau 3 0 6 0 0 330
Mark De Antonio Brooklyn 9 2 1 0 0 190
Mikey Riese Yavuz 6 2 3 0 0 260
Ty Siouxpancic Inflexible 51 7 4 0 800 1685
======================================================================
Total 2465
 | | At this point, Ty is saying,
"Wow, this ship sure is heavy!" |
After complaining about missing the sink, Ty asked what happened. I explained that I really didn't know but it sure appeared to be unstable out there on the water. Everything worked perfectly and there was minimal damage I guessed weather played a large factor. He then said something about every SCRAP ship sinking now as the SoDak was the last one waiting to be baptized. I agreed but then told him that due to the lack of damage, I was probably going to still win the battle. As amazing as it sounds, the SoDak and the Inflexible both had the EXACT same number of damage points. This coupled with the other damage meant that while I lost the battle, I won the war. But, a bittersweet victory at best. After all, a sink is a sink no matter the cause.
Having never experienced this "plowing" phenomenon on the water, I asked some veteran MWC captains if they had heard or experienced anything similar. As luck would have it, things like this have occurred in the past. The consensus among the experts was that the swells were at the resonant frequency (wavelength) for my hull length which caused the SoDak to behave strangely and to have a rougher time on the water. I've had the SoDak in water which was more rough than what I had just expericed but the outcome was nothing like this battle. As a matter of fact, the swells were quite a bit smaller than the ship experienced a few months earlier at the same lake but the outcome was certainly different. Besides, no matter the excuse, a sink is a sink.
After the scoring, I noted I had water in my rudder box. Ty was effectively out for the day and since all three of us had things to do in the afternoon, we decided to leave the event between battles. Good thing too as Ty needed extra time for a shower after all those ship retrievals!
So what's in store for the SoDak? SoDak 2.0. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Copyright © 2002 Brian Eliassen
Photos courtesy of John Riese
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