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Total Run: 477
Nautical Miles
Total Average Speed: 5.82 Knots
Hours From Departure: 82 Hours
Distance To Go This Leg: 705 Nautical Miles to Long Beach for re-fueling
Estimated Time of Arrival: 8:00 a.m., September 21
Present Course: 180 Degrees due South
Seas and Swells: Combined at 10 Feet
Barometer: 1018 Millibars
Air Temperature: 58 Degrees
Visibility: 10 Miles
Skies: Broken Overcast Position:
USS New Jersey is closer to land this evening than at anytime since
passing Cape Flattery in northwestern Washington state. She is 34.5 nautical miles
west by south of southern Oregon's famed Cape Blanco Lighthouse. Although Sea
Victory has maintained a steady, straight-line 180-degree due-south course, Oregon's
coastline at this point reaches farther into the Pacific than it does north of this point.
Messages From A Journey
When Governor Christie Whitman signed documents on July
7th, at the New Jersey state Capitol in Trenton, she set into motion a series of actions
and reactions that brought us all to this moment. She executed the towing agreement
with Crowley Marine Services, Inc. of Seattle and joined with the U.S. Navy's Ship
Donation Program office to assume responsibility for the safe and effective delivery of
the USS New Jersey to the waters of New Jersey and the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
There, the battleship will await the Navy's decision as to her final destination.
Once the towing agreement was official, plans for the
ship's journey fell into place. Months, even years, had been directly invested by
interested New Jerseyans in this homecoming voyage. Now it was becoming a reality.
Our messages from sea, linking history and memory with a
September reality, as we make our way in the Sea Victory, could only have come from the
generosity and public spiritedness of many individuals, organizations and corporations.
No more time should escape our recognition of those responsible for enabling these
reports.
Crowley Marine Services, Inc. has granted this
correspondent guest status aboard its stately tug. The accommodations are superior;
the companionship ennobling and educationally challenging; and the physical resources,
from working space to breakfast table, are something to write home about. Most of
all, the leadership Crowley's personnel extend to this novice mariner go far beyond their
duties. We are most grateful.
LandSea Systems, Inc., based in Virginia Beach, Virginia,
provided us access to a state-of-the-art marine satellite-telephone for voice, data,
email, fax and photo transmissions. This primary, indispensable communications tool
makes it possible to dispatch twice-daily reports of the journey with real-time photos and
current, precise navigational and marine insight from the tug's seasoned Captain, Kaare
Ogaard.
Our use of LandSea System's Thrane & Thrane SeaPak-M
Transportable Maritime mini-M system, with its antenna mounted atop the pilothouse upper
deck -- another Crowley courtesy, not incidentally -- allows for a clear, reliable,
consistent and invaluable link to the global satellite network operated by Inmarsat and
accessed on our behalf through the Comsat, Corporation.
Comsat, of Bethesda, Maryland, has generously provided
the capacity necessary to use the satellite for the time we disseminate the reports.
Because satellite communications for our dispatches are slower than land-based telephone
or other cable-linked telecommunications, more time is required to complete them.
Comsat helps us defray those costs.
Other project supporters range from the U.S. Navy's Ship
Donation Program Office, which kept us informed of the ship's status and its fortunes well
before the tow. The Naval Institute Press granted us permission to employ references
freely from Paul Stillwell's major work on BB-62, "Battleship New Jersey: An
Illustrated History."
Governor Whitman's Department of Military and Veterans
Affairs has created and maintained this website as a conduit for the messages, and a
public service for everyone interested in New Jersey's homecoming.
Individuals, too numerous to mention, including staffers
from last year's USS Missouri tow to Pearl Harbor, and officials from this year's
preparatory work on the New Jersey tow, as well as others wanting to see this project
succeed, supplied this reporter with the factual infrastructure and encouragement to get
us to this point.
To all of you, we extend our appreciation. Our
messages of this journey would evaporate as misty fragments without your support.
Thank you.
Submitted by Bob Wernet onboard the Sea Victory.
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