Publication:Sea Talk Spring 2005/Light Jackstay Transfers (auf Deutsch bitte)
(Zünden Sie Jackstay-Übertragungen an)
On her recent Northern Trident deployment, ship's company of HMAS Anzac carried out a series of passexs with the pride of the German fleet, FGS Brandenburg, including those challenging evolutions, light jackstay transfers. Photographer PO Damian Pawlenko captured the stages of a transfer through a number of transfers of Anzac personnel to Brandenburg. German translation in italics.
"The Admiral is not a teabag." ("Der Admiral ist nicht ein Teebeutel")
I first heard this obviously well worn joke uttered by a PO Buffer in charge of a hose party on board an Australian ship preparing to carry out a light jackstay transfer of the late Admiral Mike Hudson during a major maritime exercise in the late '80s.
The sea was somewhat lumpy and I reflected that I was glad it was (then) VADM Hudson and not me who was being transferred.
Still, the evolution was accomplished without incident - i.e. without the Chief of Naval Staff (as the top job in the RAN was then called) being dunked in the briny.
After the Bicentennial Naval Salute in 1988, visiting ships from many countries carried out watchkeeping exercises and weapons firings in the East Australia Exercise Area.
Escorting a photo-journalist from the prestigious US Naval Institute magazine, Proceedings, I visited a number of ships.
After an uncomfortable night jammed under a cold-water pipe in the top bunk of an Australian destroyer-escort, I gathered up my guest we were transferred by helicopter to HMS Sirius (the 8th, I think they said). We were impressed ... until we saw them splatter an Exocet missile, fired from one of the ship's coffin launchers, across a fairly wide expanse of ocean.
HMAS Brisbane, under the command of CAPT (later VADM) R. A. K. Walls, carried out four successful Standard missile (SM1) firings in one day.Perhaps the highlight, though, was witnessing the Iowa Class battleship, USS New Jersey, fire a broadside from her 16 inch guns.
Most of the inter-ship transfers my guest and I were treated to were by boat or helicopter. Boats were OK except that you stood a possibility of getting a wet backside and photographic kit in anything more than a metre swell.
Most ships of the period - DDGs and DEs to name two older classes - had no helo deck. So helo transfers involved avoiding masts and winching the load either up from or down to the deck - the procedure, with goods, commonly referred to as a VERTREP.
If you were a winchee, being lowered to a heaving deck was frequently an uncomfortable experience - particularly when you hit a rising deck carrying a large quantity of equipment.
These days, with helicopter decks on all of our surface combatants, major amphibious ships, replenishment ships and hydrographic vessels, and many RHIBs, the need for jackstay transfers is much less than in earlier times.
Helicopters take off and land on and there are boat transfers.
But the RAN Seamanship Training School strives to keep the art alive.
And, when Australian ships exercise - particularly with foreign navies - we take the opportunity to practice light jackstay transfers.
So it was recently after HMAS Anzac had visited Hamburg on her Northern Trident Deployment that she conducted jackstay transfers with the German frigate, FGS Brandenburg, as one of a variety of passing exercises in the North Sea.
Image 1 - I really don't feel like going across that gap. (Ich habe wirklich nicht Lust, über diese Lücke zu gehen.)
Image 2 - I wish I hadn't agreed. I'm going to get wet. (Ich wünsche, dass ich dem nie zugestimmt hatte. Ich bin dabei, nass zu werden.)
Image 3 - God. Here I am over the middle of nowhere except the cold, grey North Sea. Keep the lines taut! (Gott. Hier bin ich im Laufe der Mitte nirgends außer der kalten, grauen Nordsee. Halten Sie die Linien gespannt!)
Image 4 - This looks like the German ship. (Das sieht wie das deutsche Schiff aus.)
Image 5 - Gosh, I'm OK! Arrived high and dry. (Mensch bin ich, OK! Angekommen hoch und trocken.)
