Danang is located in a bay that is open on one end. The other three sides are land. We had entered the bay and anchored. Now it was time to leave. In most cases that’s a fairly simple evolution; you just pick up the anchor and head out to sea. Well, not this time. The wind was blowing from the shore towards the bay entrance. that meant that our bow was held in place by the anchor and the wind pushed the rest of the ship away. We were headed directly towards the shore. There wasn’t enough deep water to turn around once the anchor was raised.
A twin screw ship (one with 2 propellers) would just go ahead on one screw and astern on the other an simply rotate in place. But we were a single screw ship. So that choice wasn’t available. To make it a real personal problem, I was assigned as the officer of the deck. That meant I had to take the ship out.
In this case, I knew what was necessary. I needed to keep the bow in place with the anchor and swing the ship around before lifting the anchor clear of the bottom of the bay. To do this, one ordered the anchor to be brought to “short stay”. That means the anchor chain was winched in until it was perpendicular to the sea, but not far enough to make it break away from the ocean floor. Then you put the rudder over to make a sharp left turn and used the propeller in short bursts to throw water against the rudder and turn the ship. Most single screw ships have a propeller that turns clockwise. That causes a slight amount of the power that drives the ship forward to also tend to move the ship ‘s stern to the right. That was why I would use left full rudder, rather than right.
When the Captain came to the bridge he could see that we were pointed toward the shore. He asked me what I intended to do. I told him I planned to execute the series of orders I just spelled out in the previous paragraph. He told me “Very well. Proceed.”
The maneuver went exactly as planned and we sailed out of the bay without any problem. But an inexperienced ship handler who was not familiar with the specific problems of a single screw ship could easily have gotten into trouble, or even run the ship aground. I always thought that this was one of the events that prompted the Captain to recommend me for a Navy Achievement Medal.
Wetherhorn 