Did you see it?  The USS Freedom made a quick pass by NE Monroe County this morning on its way to Cleveland.  It must have been something to see as it left the Detroit River shipping channels and ramped up its engines for the open water crossing to Lake Erie.  Excerpt from Phil Ewing’s excellent blog at the Navy Times:

To get away from the pier in Port Huron, the ship reversed the maneuver it used to dock. The Freedom angled its stern out from the dock and into the Saint Claire River, where the downstream current from Lake Huron grabbed the ship. It pirouetted with the flow of the river until the bow pointed south, then started down the channel.

I missed the river transit and Detroit, having worked feverishly and then collapsed into the rack. When I walked onto the bridge this morning the ship was entering western Lake Erie in the channel as part of a column of merchant vessels, with big cargo carriers ahead and astern of us. The captain came on the 1MC a few minutes later to announce that we’d be firing up the turbines and making another “full CODAG” run across the lake to get to Cleveland.

The whine of the turbines filled the ship. The crew of the Freedom is still experimenting with the water depths at which it can enter high speed, because they affect how well the ship’s bow can plane up. So after the ship chopped a few times on our existing course towards the Cleveland, it turned into the wind, like a carrier, to get a slight boost for the semi-planing hull. The trick worked and the Freedom took off like a rocket.

As I write this the ship is making a right turn from running at 44 knots – over 50 miles per hour – with a 75-knot wind over the forecastle. We expect to make it to Cleveland within the hour.

Full post:

http://www.militarytimes.com/blogs/notebook/?p=169

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