The importance of naval small craft in the present war is widely recognized. One small facet of this importance is their utility in the informal training of reserve personnel, new to the Navy and just entering upon active duty. The underlying principles of ship handling, piloting, and naval administration are, in large measure, as appropriate to small craft as to others. Further, there is a clear gradation within the loose class of “small craft,” and this affords progressive experience.
It is interesting to observe the growth of skill and confidence in handling small craft, especially in narrow quarters. The main element, no doubt, is a native ability to integrate time, speed, and distance—the elements of travel—an ability which usually sees its earliest development, in this country, in learning to drive. It is as true of small craft handling as of motorcar operation that some persons have better instincts in this respect than others. In general, the best drivers are also the smoothest, and although the smooth driver uses bursts of power and other decisive action when it is needed, he does not belong to the hammer and tongs school of operation, one which sooner or later pays dividends of grief. It may be that, at bottom, the violent style is a psychological defect: a perpetuation of that beginner’s tendency to over-control which is a well-known phenomenon in the operation of land vehicles, ships, and aircraft. If so, it may be asked whether such a deficiency can ever be wholly overcome by practice.
The use of lines, engines, and helm, and the effect of wind and current, in governing a maneuver, are perhaps classifiable under the heading of mechanics; here much is gained by experience, as everyone can appreciate the principles. Yet, it is impossible wholly to separate the application of these principles from the integration of time, speed, and distance; one may still argue for the proposition that the best ship handlers are born, not made. This hypothesis, if true, helps to explain why difficulties are sometimes met in the handling of small craft, apparently disproportionate to the size of the vessel.
It is probably true that, in small craft, mistakes in piloting are the most costly; an error of judgment in ship handling means embarrassment and sometimes damage, usually minor; an error in piloting is potentially much more serious, for small craft habitually operate in waters where proximity of land, strong currents, and unfavorable weather often unite with wartime conditions like blacked-out traffic and reduced effectiveness of aids to navigation so as to require of small craft personnel exactly that seasoned judgment and skill which they may not yet possess. It is essential, therefore, that training be properly carried on by forming and practicing good piloting habits from the beginning, even though they may appear to be somewhat in excess of the vessel’s essential requirements in the ordinary course of her duty. This applies not only to fine points in the art of guiding a ship through pilot waters, but to fundamentals as well. Within the general class of small craft, there is considerable variety in the amount of science that can reasonably be put into practice, but it is a rare ship that does not depend upon the fundamentals.
The smallest and most sparingly equipped patrol craft requires reliable data on its own speed. Sometimes it is lacking because a suitable trial course is not ready at hand. In the absence of such data there seems to be an incurable optimism on the subject, in due time acquiring the status of a proved theory—pleasant but dangerous. The value of truthful data, in the form of a graph showing knots of still-water speed against revolutions by tachometer, was shown by a tiny CGR boat one hazy morning, as it progressed from buoy to buoy for a long distance down Long Island Sound, making each mark within 150 seconds of the predicted time. The cost of this precision, and the satisfaction and safety it afforded, was only two hours spent on a measured mile, the price of the local current charts, and a closely compensated compass.
The magnetic compass is by far the most important navigational instrument for small craft. The arrangements and facilities (or lack of them) may make swinging ship more difficult than it would be on a larger vessel, and yet the need for compensation, or accurate knowledge of the deviations if they are large, can hardly be stressed too much—especially as some types of duty do not stress it in themselves. Certain patrol craft may make the same run for so long a time that the patrol area becomes as well known as the oft-mentioned back yard, wherefore the deviations become nearly irrelevant to that patrol. The compass can be employed fisherman style—all the compass courses involved are learned by trial and error, including various ones for the varying conditions of the current. Other craft may run entirely by landmarks, not really needing to steer accurately by compass even to make their anchorage in case of fog. Sometimes it is tempting to compare the actual compass courses of the patrol with the magnetic courses which, it is judged, are being steered. This system is not sufficiently reliable.
One patrol boat was ordered down the coast on a special mission; upon attempting to return she missed not only the intended landfall, but the entire patrol area, and was saved from serious danger only because she chanced to strike the coast at an unrecognized point where a jetty extended out through the surf. The night was misty, and a dim light on the end of the jetty, showing for a pitifully small distance, was her first and only warning. Even so, morning found her still in the unenviable situation of being at an unknown position in fog—the jetty, also, was no longer to be seen. Of course, the deviations had not been ignored entirely up to that time, but their value had not been determined with the accuracy now so suddenly required.
In piloting, next after fundamentals, there comes appreciation of the full meaning of the maxim that navigation is not an exact science—a maxim that is applicable on soundings as well as off soundings. Science must often be tempered by the seaman’s judgment, developed by experience and aided by the scientist’s own understanding of theoretical and practical limitations. The sea is not an ideal laboratory. It is also true, however, that no man’s judgment is consistently superior to science, even at sea. It is not always easy to keep between the limits set by these truths. More than one little ship, for instance, has been sent off her course by the introduction of excessive leeway, felt in the bones.
Again, a small patrol boat was attempting to enter a landlocked basin at night, through a narrow channel between two sandbars. There was a primary seacoast light within the basin, and although her only instrument was a compass, this was closely adjusted. She could have cruised in safe water until, by repeatedly heading on the light to note its bearing, she found herself on the line of bearing running through the channel, whereafter she could have hoped, by proceeding with caution toward the lighthouse, to pick up the unlighted entrance buoys ahead or nearly ahead. But through ill-advised haste she employed some secondhand local knowledge not previously tested, and in fact grossly untrustworthy. Fortunately it was low water, and the sandbar became visible in time. It was an eerie feeling the lookout had as, peering at open water well ahead, he suddenly became aware of a long, low object near by, and realized he had been looking into the basin across the sandbar, which was barely awash. Here, then, was a case offering an example of too much humility.
To one with an introspective turn of mind, personnel administration, naval or civilian, can never be dull. Rules of practice have been evolved that have stood the test of time and that are of undisputed value; yet it will hardly be possible ever to write finis to the investigation of such a subject. Small craft, because of their very smallness, obviously constitute a good school for the study of it, and service aboard them should lead to a real understanding of the formulated rules of practice, particularly in respect to their relative importance and to the question of how far they may be waived, when necessary, without danger. Not less important, the administrator should be led to a better understanding of himself. For the rest, an opportunity to study human nature, character, and personality is never to be ignored. For better or worse, the personality of the individuals a man meets and works with, under, and over during his life, is a matter of great weight. Personality, complex resultant of a myriad of intangibles, cannot fail to color everything it touches, even in military society where the excess of individual foible often found in civilian life is under control. The egocentric nature of the universe in which every human lives cannot ever be entirely forgotten; the great dramas of literature are not those which preach the biggest sermons, but those which present the deepest characters, and in real life also the greatest things are more often the products of individual than of social excellence. Not everyone is a genius, but to everyone, genius or not, he himself is the best-known person in the world. An ideal team would be one where each member not only serves the unit as an undivided part of it, but where, at the same time, his function and his ego are happy together. Such an organization is either impossible or highly improbable, but neither does one meet such ideal things as perfect ethics every day. The moral of all this is simple enough: it consists in the realization that there is, of necessity, a gap between rules of practice and working theories on one hand, and ultimate truth on the other. In other words, nature is, in reality, a bar to perfection; it is too big for us. Were it not, life would be dull. A narrow-minded person is one whose intellect cannot recognize this hiatus between the practical and the ideal.
Finally, as every ship is to some extent a reflection of its commander’s personality, the small craft captain, being in close touch with everything and everyone aboard, has an opportunity such as he may never have elsewhere, for analyzing and improving his own qualities of leadership. To do this, however, he must be pitilessly honest with himself, more so than he can afford to be with anyone else. There is a grain of rough justice in the theory that, if anything goes wrong with a ship, the captain is somehow to blame. He should also be able to judge, to some degree, whether his own personality is one of those which, being at its own best, inspires others to do their best. If so, he has reason to rejoice. Something good is bound to result.