Underway - Alaska Traveler - page 191

Everyone has weighed in pro and con, we've got all the info we're going to get. The
Captain calls it, we're go for helo launch with NVG , night vision goggles. The aviators
head for the hangar deck, the XO takes the conn, PO Brown calls out bearing and range to
the longliner. The hangar is retracted, the helo rolled out and the rotors unfolded, after
which we dim all the lights, as even a red penlight can cause the night vision goggles to
white out.
We launch and the helo lifts off to port and roars past our bow, almost invisible against
the night sky. The Alex Haley continues running full ahead for the longliner in case they
aren't able to hoist and we have to launch a boat after all.
We monitor communications between the helo and the longliner. The helo has the
longliner douse some of their lights and requests that the injured man be brought to the
port side of the longliner's stern, and to get him in the basket when they drop it. I'm star-
ing forward through the bridge windows, and I see a tiny light move off the larger light on
our starboard bow. “They're off,” someone says. No one cheers out loud but air pressure
on the bridge goes up 10psi as everyone exhales. There is relief and gratitude in the
longliner skipper's voice when he thanks us for our assistance and says, “I didn't think
you could do that.”
In all, it took about ninety minutes from the time the call came in to the time we helo'd
the injured man off the longliner. To my admittedly uneducated eye, it was a textbook op-
eration from start to finish.
I've never seen my tax dollars better spent.
· · ·
The Alex Haley is a 282-foot medium endurance cutter. She carries a crew of ten officers
and ninety enlisted. She's got an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter which they launch and land
from a deck the size of a handkerchief and house in a folding hangar. She is named for
Alex Haley, who before he wrote Roots was a Chief Petty Officer in the US Coast Guard.
The motto of the ship is his saying, “Find the good and praise it.”
The Alex Haley is what you might call 911 for the Bering Sea. Her mission first and
foremost is homeland defense against any threat to the nation. Next most important are