The Engine Room Water Cooler

By: Roger "RamJet" Burleigh
In the summer of '69, Sailfish left its homeport of New London, Conn. headed for a new homport, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. We left with anticipation nearly as great as the astronauts who were on their way to land on the moon for the first time.
Unfortunately, unlike the gear in the moon-lander, our equipment was built by the lowest bidder and the air conditioning shit-the-bed when we were off Bermuda. With injection temps in the 70's it didn't take long for the boat to heat up to very uncomfortable temperatures. The demands on the ice machine were more than it could provide for and tepid water became the best beverage we could hope for.
After we finally found Panama, (thats' another story-- Oh what the hell, just picture the Conn on the four to eight watch, I'm huddled over the radar, I think either Searle or Behling was the QM on watch, he was pouring over his chart. His, "I don't know where the f**k we are." was what got my attention. We didn't have a good Loran line and our exact position was somewhat dubious. "Bring the chart over here", I suggested. We looked at the coast line on the chart and the picture on the radar screen. "That could be the mountain peak we see here", I offered hopefully. And that was the way we determined where we were off the coast of South America......See what went on while you were asleep!!) Anyway, we "found" the Panama Canal, waited our turn and pulled into the first lock, eventually working our way up to Rodman and the Navy Base in that area. It was there that we hoped to have our A/C unit repaired.
At this juncture, I have to admit I don't recall all of whom were involved in this adventure, maybe I was drunk, it wouldn't suprise me. "It may have been "AC" Mary ST1/SS who "borrowed" the official Navy car, it seems to me that he was involved in one way or another. We made our way to a baseball field where there was a dugout building complete with a water cooler! Our tool kit was limited so we had brought "Wingnut" Wytunski instead. (Ski, I'm sorry if I've spelled your name incorrectly.) Removing the water cooler from its cement base proved to be a minor problem for "Wingnut" who simply tore it from its foundation. Of course he hadn't given the little water tube that connected it to is source much thought and my lasting memory was that pipe squirting water straight up in the air as we threw the "liberated" cooler into the trunk of the Navy gray car. Now as luck would have it that cooler just fit down the after engine room hatch. It was there that the Sonar Girls and a knuckle-dragging TM turned our "prize" over to the Snipes. The Electricians wired up a circuit to power the cooling compressor. The Auxilliarymen piped water to the cooler location and installed a drain to the bilge. The Enginemen made a bracket that securely mounted the cooler in the engineroom. Installation was complete!! Now I don't know if someone tipped Capt. Gleason off, or not. But on his next tour through the boat, he ambled slowly through the after-engineroom, looked at the cooler, a new addition to HIS submarine and kept right on walking aft. On his way back through the engineroom he pointed at the cooler and made this comment. "The next time I come through here, that better be painted gray!" And never slowed his pace. The Sailfish crew enjoyed cool water for the remainder of that cruise. I don't know when it was removed.