User talk:Costeee7w4

Good day mate,

I served on the Sagebrush during the time it was grounded. I will include here a paragraph or two on a very eventful two months on the Sagebrush 1978.

(1) An Iris class vessel, she was built by Zenith Dredge Company of Duluth, MN. On 15 July 1943 the keel was laid; the Sagebrush was launched on 30 September 1943 and commissioned on 1 April 1944.

(2) The Irish class Buoy Tenders were fitted with thick-plate collars above and below the waterline for ice-breaking. From March to April 1944 the Sagebrush was performing ice-breaking duty to clear shipping channels in the spring thaw icebreaker on the Great Lakes. She spent the rest of her service life home ported in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from which she maintained floating and fixed aids-to-navigation (A-to-N) and manned an ATON TANBE team from the ranks of the ship's crew in service to Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and surrounding waters.

(3) In May, 1978, under the command of Lt Cmdr Howard Tawney the Sagebrush ran aground in the Spanish Virgins to the east of Puerto Rico. The Vessel grounded on a massive brain coral while steaming westward toward Puerto Rico from Saint Thomas. The grounding occurred to the north of the channel off the island of Culebra. After exhaustive efforts by the officers and crew, the vessel was retrieved by US Navy tugs from Roosevelt Rhodes Navy Base on the east coast of Puerto Rico. The vessel was made safe for passage by patching a small hole in the hull. The 7th District Command then dispatched the Sagebrush to a ship yard up the Saint John's River in Florida near Jacksonville for hull repair combined with the vessel's routine scheduled yard period. In late June as the Sagebrush made way on its return to San Juan it encountered the Motor Vessel Heidi. The Heidi was determined by the State Department to be a State-Less vessel and was boarded by the crew of the Sagebrush by the light of the full moon. Six days later the Sagebrush returned to Jacksonville with 17 prisoners (1 officer and 16 crew) and a prize vessel with contents estimated at 121 tons of marijuana. (The Coast Guard Site has 116 but I remember the betting pool.) The capture of the M/V Heidi and its contents earned the Sagebrush the right to display the large Gold Marijuana Leaf from its aircastles. As of 29 December 2011, the bust of the Heidi holds the record for captured tonnage of Marijuana in the Atlantic theater.

(3a) The grounding of the Sagebrush was the inspiration for a sea-chanty written by Seaman Fred Perry (Later QM1) and BM Striker KC Dunn (Later Captain in the Us Merchant Marine). The verse is recorded below:

"We were sailin' off Culebra 'bout as tired as we could be

We'd been workin' buoys, underway since 3

Who'd-a-thought in 15 hundred fathoms we could scrape,

Smitty had the con and the fishin' it was great.

Underway on the Sagebrush, underway all the time

ya don't see us in port much and for ladies we do pine

but when we get near harbor you'll hear our Liberty Cry, Come one come all and drink 'em tall - Coasties 'till we die!"

note: QM1 Smith Trent was Officer of the Watch at the time of the grounding. The crew had been granted rest as we had come off a a long taxing patrol and heavy weather. We were returning to San Juan by way of Roosevelt Rhodes after delivering heavy trucks and other gear to Saint Thomas. We were in the lee of the islands and it was a sweet May day. The Ship hit it about 14:30. (4) April 26 1988, the Coast Guard Cutter Sagebrush WLB 399 was decommissioned, then salvaged by the Reef Reclamation Project after meeting with environmental requirements' and then was scuttled on 28 April 1988 to become reef habitat off the Georgia coast. The Sagebrush rests among the artificial reefs at the "J Reef"~ NNW of Gray's Reef. Lat and Long: 31° 36.600' N, 80° 47.800' W; GPS

I am typing half handed after a motorcycle crash on Dec 7th. I hope this will help move the project forward. If you need more feel free to contact me kcodunn@gmail.com aka Chaplin Plato I am still in contact with a few members of that crew including Fred Perry.

Fair Winds and following seas.

ChaplinPlato (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2011 (UTC)Chaplin Plato