About 1962 while the Segundo was in dry dock in Sasbeo Japan on a dark and stormy and pouring down rainy night
Ted Howell had just finished a shower and started aft from the after battery when one of the Japanese yard bird's came running
forward through the forward engine room with eyes as big as coffee mugs holding up the index fingers of both hands making
an X sign and
repeating the words at the top of his voice" Dinky, Dinky, Dinky"
I had no idea what he wanted or what was happening so I followed him in to the after engine room. Just aft
of the outside hatch on the port side where the shore power attached to ships power terminals was a shower of sparks and smoke
and fire coming from the shore power terminal.
Howell ran in to the maneuvering room and reported "fire in the after engine room" on the 7 MC, some one in the control
room repeated the the message on the 1 MC. Howell in the mean time gripped a C02 fire Extinguisher and was spraying at the
blaze when help started arriving.
Richard Lindsay left the boat to find the source of power. The sub station at the
other end of our shore power cable was a wire cage with open knife switches out in the open weather( mind you it is pouring
down rain). How he managed to get the power off and not get killed I don't know but he did.
Needless to say Howell
had a good grip on the handle of the CO2 bottle even after the fire was out. Lt. Slater the engineering officer was standing
to Howell's left and Howell squeezed the handle too hard and filled his shoes with CO2. He was not impressed as much
as he was suprised. After that things got settled down and back to normal.
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