B. J. Jones the Story of My Life Book 3
Copyright© 2021 by jballs
Chapter 63
Morning came early; my cell was ringing on the night stand at 0500. The first message was from Andy. “Most parts of the plan are in place the rest will be in place in 48 hours.’’ The most parts were that JBG through Andy and Vicky had signed contracts with the Philippine government for a security detail of twenty -five fast ships along with support vessels. Another ethics issue if someone was counting, I was sure and they were counting.
The fast ships were going to Freedom shoals where the helicopters had assembled the new installation yesterday. They were going to assist the destroyers in keeping the Chinese fishing boats at bay.
The fishing boats were actually CCP military personnel, navy, army, intelligence officers designed to expand influence when possible and provide aggressive resistance if any Philippine fisherman showed up and run them off.
The second message from Andy,’’ freighter is unloading fast ships and crew in deep water a thousand yards from Freedom Shoals container base. The support ship will be on site before the end of the day. And operational.’’ The freighter was also carrying more supplies for what was now called Freedom Shoals base.
The Morton Jones anchored with dual anchors a thousand yards to the north west of FSB. The Morton Jones had started life as sub tender, USS McKee AS41 before it was auctioned off as surplus. The USS Land AS39 was the other sub tender being sold, both being decommissioned and sold the same day. Marcy bought both of them. For damn near nothing.
Andy and Vicky were trying to fill a gap in the fast ship program as Vicky called it. The McKee was renamed Morton Jones and the Land renamed to the Summers Lane. Both spent almost a year at Dillion ship yards in Biloxi Mississippi.
Andy had researched the ships thoroughly before Marcy put bids on them. The Navy had spent ninety million dollars renovating each ship only to decide a year later to scrap them sending them to Gov deals auction site for the highest bidder. Every ship’s system had been tested, repaired or replaced.
JBG still had the inside track on the auction site. For a month there were no bids. The scrappers were waiting for the last day, last hour and last minute to bid on it hoping for a steal.
Old navy ships sold for nothing, the message that accompanied the sale listing was red flagged, lead paint, could contain PCB, and other hazardous materials, buyer responsible for all removal to the latest environmental standards before destruction. On a ship that size it could have been millions.
But the navy had removed all that stuff during previous dry dock maintenance repairs. We were not going to cut it up for scrap Andy, Vicky and Marcy were going to put it back in service for the Philippine and Vet Nam contracts.
Marcy had exercised our buyers code on the last day and bought the ship away from the scrappers who were waiting to buy it for a penny as they had for the last four aircraft carriers that had been scrapped.
The Morton Jones and Summers Lane were nearly perfect for what Andy and Vicky wanted. Its main propulsion Steam. The auxiliary power was diesel electric through four big cat generators.
Two were all that needed to propel the ship when coupled to the reduction gears. The other two were multi -function designed to give shore power up to six submarines tied to it during replenishing or repairs. That connection was at a voltage we would never use.
It had huge freezers and refrigerators for foods and storage for canned goods. It also had bunks for one hundred and fifty extra sailors. Ten fast ships could be tethered along the sides. Twenty if they were double tethered. Dillion had added the necessary attachments for that.
Dillion had also added the latest sewage treatment plant and fresh water making equipment replacing the outdated Navy equipment. There was a massive machine shop on board to handle any repairs. Metal brakes, lathes, milling machines. The navy had removed none of the repair equipment. They were just going to send complete ship to auction.
It had one fifty ton over the side crane. It was capable of pulling a fast ship out of the water and setting it on stands on the deck for repairs. They also had two helo pads for helicopters. Andy was going to have a black hawk and a bell assigned to each ship.
The fresh water holding tanks were stainless and epoxy coated. The fuel tanks were cleaned and epoxy coated to eliminate leaks, rust and the latest filtration equipment added. She could carry five hundred thousand gallons of number two diesel fuel. The supply rooms and parts rooms were enormous.
Andy’s plan was to use the two ships as a floating base. Vicky had contracts in the works with several countries dealing with pirate attacks that a mobile off shore base would deny the pirates of intelligence.