Death of a Wooden Shoe - U.S. Coast Guard

deck just forward of the pilot house. In the now nearly total darkness I hurry to
the narrow space between winch and pilot house superstructure and the manheight
drum on which the starboard anchor cable is wound.
I bump headlong into someone in the darkness. The someone begins to cuss
me. It is Dicastro!
"What in hell are you doing here!?" he demands.
"Chief Talledo assigned me to this station whenever the anchor is to be lifted or
dropped now and in the future."
"Get your ass on the gun deck and help them cat the anchor," he growls.
"But sir, this is my station!" I protest.
"Your station is where I want it to be," he snarls. "And right now it’s on the
fo’c’s’le head, now git!."
"Sir," I say, "winch is very tricky, sir."
"Go, dammit!!" he screams, so I go.
If the clutch control wheel is not turned very, very slowly, the clutch catches or
grabs suddenly, and the anchor chain is yanked suddenly. Whoever may be
handling the anchor at the time, could be injured. As I get to the anchor catting
station on the bow of the ship, Talledo asks: "What in hell are you doing here!?"
"Dicastro sent me," I reply.
Talledo mumbles angrily.
There is a six-foot-high davit on the Nanok's bow. It has a rope falls hanging from
it’s arched-down end. When the 500-pound Baldt-type anchor is raised from the
sea-bottom, up to the shipside opening that guides the moving chain, the hoisting
is stopped. The hanging rope falls is attached to the anchor’s shackle. "Slack" in
the chain is shouted for, so that the chain will slide back out of the guide [hawsehole]
making it possible for the anchor to be lifted with the rope falls and hand
power, above the top surface of the deck. It is lifted high enough to clear the top
of an eighteen-inch-high cable-rail that is intended to prevent personnel from
accidentally sliding overboard.
It is very dark, the anchor is still outboard of the ship. Dicastro has hoisted it
smoothly. No sudden jerking, etc. As the shackled top of the anchor reached the
height of the hawse-hole, the hook at the end of the rope falls is attached to the
shackle. Robbins yells to Dicastro for "slack" and Dicastro responds. We
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