THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 23, 1995 TAG: 9508230441
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
The Navy's smallest warships returned home Tuesday from the first overseas deployments for their new class, proving to top admirals everywhere that they've earned a place with the fleet.
Coastal patrol ships Typhoon and Sirocco - tiny but powerful 170-foot, four-propeller crafts - crossed the Atlantic twice, visited 11 countries in the Mediterranean and Baltic regions, called on 18 ports and traveled 27,000 miles during their four-month deployment.
So efficient were their efforts that they finished their tasks more than a month early and were allowed to come home.
``Originally, it looked like a full five months,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Scott J. Phillpott, the Typhoon's commanding officer. ``But once we got over there, we did pretty much everything we needed to do.''
The 28 men who man each of the coastal patrol crafts said their ships are the greatest in the Navy.
``I've had quite a few admirals offer to trade shoulder boards with me,'' said Phillpott, 34, in his third year as captain of the Typhoon. ``This is probably one of the best jobs in the Navy.''
The ships offer career-enhancing opportunities to officers and enlistees, to prove their worth at an early age - commanding officers are lieutenants or recently selected lieutenant commanders. They also become skilled quickly in vast areas of ship operations and perform non-traditional missions that are seen as increasingly valuable in the post Cold War era.
Phillpott's counterpart, Lt. Joseph P. Voboril, 29, is commanding officer of the Sirocco.
They are part of a new breed of young officers and enlisted men being allowed to take charge of the Cyclone-class ships, designed as a ``super PT boat'' of sorts, and affectionately called by crew members ``jet skis with guns'' and ``Harleys with a kick.'' They can reach speeds in excess of 40 mph.
Both ships docked simultaneously in a precision maneuver Tuesday morning at Special Boat Squadron Two's piers at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.
Named for weather makers - Hurricane, Squall, Monsoon, Cyclone, Tempest - the $10 million vessels are part of a 13-ship class, with nine of them based at Little Creek. Four others are on the West Coast.
Capt. Jon R. Wright, the squadron's new commodore, called the Typhoon's and Sirocco's cruise highly successful.
``What they've just completed is significant because they did it with no measurable problems at all,'' said Wright.
They averaged 15 knots and five refuelings on their way over and nine fuel stops and 20 knots on their longer way back, said Phillpott of the 10-day transits. Their fuel station was the fleet oiler Big Horn that accompanied them.
Their deployment, plus that of two sister ships in the Persian Gulf, was designed as a ``proof of concept'' mission to determine whether the fleet commanders would use them and how, according to Wright.
``I've only been here (as commodore) three days, but what I gathered is that everything was totally successful,'' he said. ``They did what they were assigned to do, made two Atlantic crossings and even weathered Felix.''
Hurricane Felix blocked their way home as they approached Bermuda last week, but they steamed south of it, said Phillpott.
``When it sprinted up north, we sprinted up north behind it,'' he said.
Overseas, they performed interdiction operations involving the U.N. embargo of Serbia and Montenegro and other coastal patrols, steaming into waters normally too shallow for other Navy ships.
They worked with the navies of Albania, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Sweden. They visited St. Petersburg in Russia.
Typhoon's hull boasted - possibly for the first time since World War II - a black and gray, zigzag camouflage paint scheme designed to break up its silhouette at sea.
``Since we operate so close to the coast, having anything to break up your silhouette is a great advantage,'' said Phillpott. ``They really can't tell what direction you are going.''
Most unique about the Cyclone-class ships is that their crews have double and triple duties to perform because of their small numbers.
Clarence Blossom, 37, is not only the Typhoon's only cook - he prepared three meals a day for four months and cleaned the pots and pans - but also is its emergency medical technician, log recorder, food purchaser, has damage control responsibilities and is qualified on three of the ship's guns.
``We stayed pretty busy,'' said Blossom, a Hampton resident and a 12-year veteran and first class petty officer. ``It was the fastest cruise I've ever been on. I recommend it. There are a lot of advantages, and everybody is real close.''
One advantage is that it generally stayed at sea only four or five days at a time, then found a port for the next two.
A disadvantage, said Phillpott, is that ``we have no barber.''
But cramped quarters and hard work left no one ``pulling their hair out,'' said Phillpott.
The Typhoon's crew even formed a six-member choir during the cruise, performing on the ship's bow as they steamed into port to waiting families.
For Ensign Jason Lamb, 23, of Columbus, Ohio, who graduated from the Naval Academy just a year ago, the cruise was great.
``People are dying to come to these things,'' he said. ``It was probably the best job I could ask for.''
Lamb worked as the ship's weapons officer, supply officer, security manager, its morale, welfare and recreation officer and more.
He's requested a transfer to the SEALs, the special warfare operations unit that the ships were designed to support. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
Photos by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Quartermaster Third Class Stephen Vick, above left, greets his
girlfriend, Sophie Egasse, on the Typhoon, one of the tiny warships
that returned home Tuesday after a 27,000-mile, four-month
deployment. Right, a sailor is silhouetted on his inflatable boat
approaching the Sirocco outside the Chesapeake Bay.
[Drawing]
A Cyclone-class ship is dwarfed by an Arleigh Burke-class guided
missile destroyer.
by CNB