Our good friend Gilles Poirier has shared many of his memories of life aboard HMCS Ojibwa; however, he also served aboard her younger sister HMCS Onondaga. We are happy to share some of his wry observations on life aboard Onondaga. The stories may be humorous but they also highlight just how precarious the life of a pirate can be even on a dock.

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The Good and the Bad

Fine people,

A good story on a bad docking. Onondaga had to do an emergency docking, due to a badly damaged propeller. It was a very stormy afternoon, high wind and heavy rain. By the time the syncrolift brought us out of the water, it was mid evening; we could not go into the shed since Okanagan [the youngest of the Canadian Oberon Class submarines] was inside.

Rock & Roll Not Always a Fun Thing

The dust settled, the docking crew had gone home, all that was left on board was the duty watch. We were sitting in the accommodation space watching TV. I sensed that there was something wrong; it felt to me like the submarine was rolling a bit. After a while, I decided to ask the other members on the duty watch if they had the same feeling and, yes they did.

Sometimes Life Flashes Before Your Eyes

I quickly got my wet weather gear on and proceeded to the dock bottom. Lo and behold, the submarine was sitting on her keel only! The dockyard staff had forgotten to put in the side stays.... and it was never noticed in the storm. And yes, the submarine was rocking from port to starboard. Needless to say, the wind suddenly picked up, increasing the rolling. I quickly got the duty watch off the submarine, phoned the duty dockyard officer to inform him that the Onondaga was just about to roll onto its port side, on the syncrolift.

Things You Don't Want to Tell the Captain

Well, within minutes, there were more and more sirens and shipwrights arriving at top speed. Of course, the meatheads were the first ones to arrive; they wanted to take charge. I informed them that if they thought they could hold the submarine upright to go ahead, if not, to get the hell off my dock bottom. Side stays were quickly installed, and the rolling ceased. I could file away the picture in my mind of phoning the captain to inform him that the duty watch was OK, but that his submarine was laying on her port side! [Not that Gilles is ever at a loss for words!]
 
Ah! The life of a submariner.

Gilles

Note:

The image above is of HMCS Ojibwa on the syncrolift during a refit. If anyone has an image of Onondaga on the lift and would like to forward it to [email protected], I will replace the image above with one of Onondaga.