Coast Guard's National Motor Lifeboat School is Looking for a Few Good Coxswains
Story and photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class Brian Leshak
A sixteen-foot wave crashes into the bow and throws two men wildly into the air. The boat's coxwain, Chief Petty Officer Kevin R. Clark, yells, "swell on the port side!" and the men brace themselves right before impact. Clark turns the boat into the wave, meeting it head on, and just as he feels the boat reach the peak of the wave he slightly pulls back on the throttle. The bow of the boat comes down, and the trip over the wave is a smooth one.
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Clark, a veteran instructor on his second tour at the Coast Guard's National Motor Lifeboat School (NMLBS), has just demonstrated to his surfman students how to effectively take a 47-foot motor lifeboat through the treacherous surf off the coast of Ilwaco, Wash.
The coastal waters near Cape Disappointment are considered to be the most dangerous surf waters in all of North America. Over the past 300 years 700 lives have been lost and over 2,000 vessels destroyed. The waters have been nicknamed "The Graveyard of the Pacific."
"There's a section of water that's just off the coast known as 'peacock spit' where it gets really nasty," said Clark. The waves off the coast of Ilwaco can reach heights of 30-feet depending on the weather conditions. Clark explained that in weather terms, a bad day usually means a good day for them.
"We need high surf to train and bad weather usually gives us that," Clark said.
The Surfman Program is a four-week class teaching students, who are already coxswain qualified, how to handle many different surf conditions. The coxswain is the person in charge of driving a boat and is responsible for its crewmembers and everything that happens onboard.
During the first days of class, the students must pass a physical fitness test and a 75-yard surf swim. If they do not pass any part of the physical fitness test they are sent home.
During their surf swim they are dumped into the ocean just off the coast and must swim against the current and changing tides to reach the beach. The students will spend about 50 hours underway and 5-10 hours in a classroom.
Petty Officer 1st Class Scott A. Logan, an instructor at the NMLBS, said when a student is put in charge of the 47-foot
Chief Petty Officer Joseph M. Browyer navigates his 47-foot motor lifeboat through rough surf during a training exercise off the coast of Ilwaco, Wash. Students train at the National Motor Lifeboat School during a four-week class.
motor lifeboat everyones life is in that student's hands.
"That's why we take this class very seriously," said Logan. "Attention to detail is a very big thing here at the school."
There is room in the Coast Guard for 163 surfmen. Right now there are 83 certified surfmen, leaving a shortage of about 80.
"That's why we opened the surfman class up here at the school," Logan said. There are two classes per year with nine students in each class.
Logan said most of the surfmen he comes in contact with have said they joined the Coast Guard in the hopes of becoming surfman qualified. Before there was a surfman course, a coxswain would have to train on his own time while still fulfilling his everyday duties at his unit. According to Logan, it usually takes two to four years for a coxswain to become surfman qualified using on the job training.
By opening a surfman class the school has students qualified in about a year. They still receive the same skills as they would receive with on the job training at a unit, but it's just in a more effecient way, said Logan.
After graduation the students will have to prove their surfman skills at their unit before being qualified there.
The qualified surfmen must re-certify their skills every six months to maintain their surfman classification.
The school teaches five classes other than the surfman class: a coxswain qualifiying class, a heavy weather class for the 47-foot boats, an engine crewman qualifying class, an engine maintenance class and an operations support class.
Captain Dean Lee, chief of the office of boat forces in Washington, D.C., commented that there has been 133 years of surfman service.
"Our fleet has grown to over 1,800 boats in the past couple of years," explained Lee. The Coast Guard boat force has grown with the growing needs of homeland security.
"I have so much respect for these guys out here, they have a rigourous training schedule that demands a lot from them," he said. "I want a few fearless coxswains to step up and take on this job," said Lee. "We need them right now."
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