Mr. Pfaff Department: AIMD Author: Michael Greaney Era: 1989 Date: 12/15/05 I remember you Mr. Pfaff, you were a junior officer in Electical(RE-Div) if I remember right. You and Chief Forbes were constantly trying to get dirt on each other so one of you could get the upper hand! Glad to hear all is well.

Man Overboard! Department: Rx Author: Michael Greaney Era: 1987 Date: 12/15/05 I remember one 4 of July we were in GITMO and we had just pulled out of the harbour and were heading back to sea that night. I was on the 1JV phones as throttleman, when I heard the aft lookout say he heard someone in the water. They call away man-overboard and turn the Pig around. All are accounted for but as we turn around this time we come even closer to the sailboat we almost hit the first time! It was a group fleeing Haiti. I believe we ended up smashing the boat to pieces trying to recover it. We shipped the guys to Miami. I still find it amazing that we almost ran them over twice.

Mike Matthys Department: Engr Author: Scott Pfaff Era: 1975 Date: 12/15/05 Mike - I was the Elect Officer on Ike in 1990, one of them khaki dudes - left just in during the Med run just before you guys went thru the Suez Canal due to Saddam being an a-hole. My last year on board, I spent most of my last year on board topside drivin' the ship and duty days in Two Plant.

Illegal Shipalt Department: Rx Author: Mike Matthys Era: 1990 Date: 12/15/05 I was in RM-22 and we had a turbine driven fire pump on CGLL. I am sure that many of you are familiar with it. Anyhow, there was a flange that had a steam leak and we tried everything we could think of to fix it. The fix would work for about a week and then it would start leaking again. Dave Zezula ("Rack") came up with the idea of drilling an extra hole near the leak and putting a nut and bolt through it. We did this and it worked great. Everything was cool for about six months or so until we had an RO CGLL inspection. He knew there had been a leak and asked how we had fixed it. As we started to tell our lie, he looked at the flange and discovered that there was an extra hole. He asked us if we knew about it and we had to admit that we did. The RO then told us that what we did was "an illegal shipalt", and that all shipalts had to be approved before doing the work. We claimed ignorance, even though we knew better.

RE: Greaney Department: Engr Author: Scott Pfaff Era: 1989 Date: 12/15/05 Greaney - we stood many a watch together down in Two Plant as I recall. I had E-1 division early on, later all of the nuke & non-nuke electricians and IC men in Engineering.

Barnyard Follies Department: Rx Author: Mike Matthys Era: 1988 Date: 12/15/05 One of the most disgusting movies I have ever seen has got to be the movie that ended up in Rx Berthing called "Barnyard Follies." Some of you may have seen it. For those of you who haven't, it is various scenes of women performing sexual acts with animals. These animals include dogs, horses, and believe it or not, an eel. It seemed that with this movie, you either loved it or hated it. One day when Rx berthing was pretty empty, one of the guys who hated the movie took it up to the fantail and tossed it overboard. Of course, there was a big uproar in Rx Berthing. "Who stole 'Barnyard Follies'? 'Where was Barnyard Follies'?". Those of us who knew kept our mouths shut. I have to admit I wasn't sad to see that movie go.

IKE vs. Spanish Freighter Department: Engr Author: Scott Pfaff Era: 1988 Date: 12/15/05 I see that there's a number of stories about IKE's collision w/the Spanish coal ship. I was on the bridge getting ready for the degaussing run. We had just returned from a very successful Med run laced w/a bunch of port calls. The Navigator was intent on pullin in right on time and slowed the ship to bare steerage way (~5 knots) and everyone was watching a SSN leaving Norfolk when they realized that a heavy wind off the starboard beam was pushing the ship off course.

IKE vs Spanish Freighter II Department: Engr Author: Scott Pfaff Era: 1988 Date: 12/15/05 We had a Tiger cruise going on at the time and the rail was manned. I remember calling down to the guys on the offshore power sponsons to clear out cause we were gonna have a collison - they all thought I was full of s**t. Ended up peelin' the side of IKE open like a can. Kinda funny now, I remeber the Spaniards flippin' us off and swearin' at us and all of the skippers in port cabin furniture floating in the bay. 10,000 people on pier 12, half a mile away waitin' for us to pull in. Pretty amazing. Cost the skipper, the navigator and the OOD their careers. Capt Beck ended up as the CO at a NROTC unit at the University of Wisconsin before retiring - lost his star that day and the ship lost the Battle E.

Working for the weekend Department: Rx Author: Flounder Era: 2005 Date: 12/16/05 I'll be working on both Christmas and New Year's Day, but it's not so bad - my ship is still berthed at the island of Curaçao in the southern Caribbean. The Chief Engineer thinks he's already retired, so as 1st Engineer I run the department. We'll probably spend some time at the beach both days, if we can get away. Hopefully we won't have to go to sea between now and then. On the Ikeatraz I stood 6x6 watches for 3 of the 4 Christmases I spent on there, and was handsomely compensated for taking the duty on a couple of them.

Department: Rx Author: Flounder Era: 2005 Date: 12/16/05 Oh, and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on here! -Flounder (Tim Palange), RE Div. '81-'85