Back 
It’s on! The Annual District Buoy Tender Roundup begins today in Juneau as nine U.S. Coast Guard buoy tenders from Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia gather to study, train and compete in skills they will use in their various ships and on the waterways they sail.
“It’s about training and lessons learned,” said Lt. Jason Haag ,commanding officer of the Coast Guard cutter Henry Blake. “It’s an opportunity to get everybody together and is in our best interest.”
The 110-foot Henry Blake, from Everett, Wash., left for Alaska on Tuesday and refueled in Ketchikan on Friday.
“We are a smaller crew,” Haag said, gesturing to the larger buoy tenders docked at Station Juneau. “But we will hold our own just fine. We are not intimidated by their vast size or numbers.”
The Coast Guard Seventeenth District hosts the week-long event to allow Coast Guard members the opportunity to receive specialized training in areas such as buoy deck safety courses, aids-to-navigation, engine repair, buoy maintenance, tower climbing, rescue swimming, safety equipment maintenance, first aid, damage control, financial management, personnel management, career development and much more.
“Things like what is the best way to shape a shackle or lift a buoy of a certain weight and the conditions you can do it in,” Coast Guard public relations Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis said. “Just all kinds of different training that are intrinsic to being on a Coast Guard cutter as well as aids to navigation. It’s standardized training but is something they don’t get to do a lot of because they are training individually as each ship. They don’t get to come together as a unit.”
The roundup allows the crews to share with their peers best practices and things learned during missions. Due to remote locations in Alaska in which the cutters operate, this mission-essential training would be nearly impossible to complete without the roundup.
Classes and training run through the week with specialized events happening on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Tuesday will feature an ice-carving contest by the chefs and food service specialists of each vessel.
Wednesday will pit crew against crew in specialized competitions entitled “Buoy Tender Olympics.” Events include boom spot, chain dragging, survival suit relay, heat and beat, buoy line toss and tug of war. The competitions are to simulate actual actions and duties performed on the vessels but also to let the crews enjoy each other’s company.
Friday will feature food competitions including the biscuit and gravy cook off and the best fish recipe.
Friday will also feature the Cutterman’s Call, a chance to sit down and swap sea stories, and the ending awards ceremony and bragging rights.
“We are the four-time defending tug-of-war champions,” said Lt. Cmdr. Michele Schallip, the Coast Guard cutter Spar’s commanding officer. “And the defending biscuit-and-gravy champs.”
This is Schallip’s first year on the Spar, from Kodiak, but she attended last year as the executive officer on the Maple, homeported in Sitka.
“It’s a unique opportunity to get together with people who do the same job and come back here to a place we love. It is about the camaraderie, but we are going to do awesome,” said Schallip.
The 225-foot vessels attending include Alaska’s Spar, Maple, Hickory (Homer), and Sycamore (Cordova), and the Fir, home ported in Astoria, Ore.
The 100-footers are coastal buoy tenders Henry Blake and the Ketchikan based Anthony Petit.
The Canadian Coast Guard vessel Bartlett, a 190-foot ice-strengthened medium navaids tender from Victoria, British Columbia, will also be joining the events.
Last, but certainly not least, is the 65-foot inland buoy tender Elderberry from Petersburg.
More than 320 officers and crew members will enjoy the port call in Juneau. The roundup gives the buoy tender crews opportunities to share ideas and build camaraderie among the “black hull” fleet, a term given to the buoy tender class. Crews aboard Coast Guard buoy tenders in Alaska service 1,250 navigational aids along 42,000 miles of coastline while actively participating in search and rescue, environmental protection and law enforcement missions.
“Basically we try to get the mandatory training knocked out in this week,” USCG spokesperson Lt. Junior Grade Kelly Hanson said. “Bring all the cutters together and get it done, one location at one time.”
Hanson said the weeklong activities are not open to the public due to safety concerns but plans are under way to allow tours on board the various vessels. The bouy tenders will be available for tours on Wednesday from 1 to 3 p.m.
• Contact reporter Klas Stolpe at 523-2263 or at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.
Comments (21)
Add commentDebt Ceiling?
Here we have a perfect example of the government wasting money--borrowed money! Semper Spendit is the call!!
I knew it:
Before I even started to read this article, I knew that someone would be complaining about the money. I didn’t expect it to be the first comment. Why not tell BO the same thing when his wife is in Africa on those swary's. Or all those golf games, parties in the WH, and let’s not forget the vacations all on the tax payers’ shoulders. At least the Coast Guard is actually doing a service for the country.
@Milspec.: "Why not tell BO
@Milspec.: "Why not tell BO the same thing when his wife is in Africa on those swary's. Or all those golf games, parties in the WH, and let’s not forget the vacations all on the tax payers’ shoulders."
Because those things--which, incidentally, ALL presidents have partaken in--cost very miniscule amounts compared to the total amount the government spends. Nice try, though. Maybe you should focus on Obama's ACTUAL faults as president in your attempts to discredit him.
PP - agree....
And as I said on the other post - it's amazing to me that things that ALL presidents do (President G.W. Bush took 69 days of vacation in his first year, as opposed to President Obamas 26 days...) are somehow only a problem for Republicans if the president is a Democrat.
I'd hazard a guess that much international travel was needed after President Bush to repair our relationships with foreign nations.
How Disappointing...
@Milspec. Agree 100%. Nice article and then a kick in the teeth, followed by other negative Nellies who cannot stay on topic. Disappointing. Juneau is lucky to host these professionals & train them together, in the most cost effective way to work in an area with the most coastline & challenging weather/seas in the US.
@Snagger - If you ever need these guys, I believe you will find the training & skills of the USCG become "priceless" to you & your loved ones. (Unfortunately,) they will work just as hard to save your butt as they will for mine & Milspec.'s, who actually appreciate & respect them. Shameful comment.
milspec and raven - right on!
milspec and raven - right on! I want the Coast Guard training until they're experts.
Watching the F-16's doing touch and goes at the airport is a sight to behold. Train on!
Unfortunately:
Unfortunately BO is president now and not GW. The US is in dire need to save money anyway it can. You’re beloved BO is always asking us to give in, dish out and sacrifice our way of life while he and his minions are out having a grand old time at our expense. I call BS; I will listen with greater enthusiasm if he practiced what he preaches. I don’t really care how many he or any other president takes. Just don’t ask me to give more while he just takes. These are different times we are dealing with.
Milspec.
I don't think you can find one single instance of Obama telling us we need to "sacrifice" our way of life. In fact, I am very certain he's trying to spare the middle class any tax increases and instead make corporations and big-earners contribute their fair share. So unless you ARE a rich person, you aren't being asked to do much of anything.
You can also stop implying that Obama and his "minions" are in the white house just to party it up. That's absurd.
Some people just don't get it
Some people just don't get it until it hits their won backyard. Be ready for a giant slap, p.
For those of us that are living in the real world - look at the price of gas, food, electric rates, difficulty getting student loans and higher tuition, increased medical insurance premiums, increased car registration fees, property tax increases...
I'd say I'm sacrificing quite a fair amount. I know I have less disposable income than I used to have, so I'll call that sacrificing. p can call it whatever he wants.
what
Blaa...blaa.blaa,,,,bla
All of those things you
All of those things you listed are either beyond the president's control or are things he's actively working to fix (like insurance premiums), despite GOP obstruction.
However, for someone who is supposedly sacrificing so much, you're on the internet an awful lot during all hours of the day.
Maybe some sacrifice would be good for the country, though (at least from the middle and upper class). As it is, I see a bunch of spoiled little brats who think there's an inexhaustible supply of every resource, and by golly, it's their God-given right to consume as much as they can!
PP
Well PP I am not a rich person but according to BO I am. Yes I will be affected, as of now I am not spending money like I would normally be doing here in town. If I’m not spending money then someone is not making money. I live a very modest life here in Juneau. Better then some, not so better then others. We pay a large amount to taxes already and he still wants’ more money. I agree with Calypso, what will happen when small businesses “the rich” for example get hit with higher taxes? Two things, the business will either raise the price of their product in which less sales will be made or start lying off. Either way it will affect the middle class and worst the so called poor.
Pay close attention to BO and what he has to say at 00:25 in this clip. This is only one of several articles’ where he has spoken of this. It was really hard listening to him, brutal I say brutal.
http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/politics/143066/obama-asks-america...
If you make more than
If you make more than $250,000 a year, then I'm sorry, but I don't feel bad if you have to start paying more taxes. We pay historically low taxes right now, and it's not sustainable.
And it has nothing to do with small business owners. A small business owner making less than a quarter of a million a year would be unaffected. Someone making more would be taxed more heavily on the income above that point, but not so much they'd need to raise prices of their product (no one making that much "needs" to make more at all), and given how the market works, they'd go out of business if they tried.
You guys have this perverse myth that taxes lead to higher prices and layoffs in the business world. I'd like you to explain how this works, please. Bear in mind that only profits are taxed.
Unbelievable:
This is what I'm referring to. What can you say, the man has no class.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/BarackObama-Birthday-DebtCeiling/2011...
Karl Marx:
“No one making that much "needs" to make more at all” Sounds like the economic theories of Karl Marx. That statement alone tells me all I need to know about you PP. Please put a price on the term rich. You may have a neighbor who makes less then you and considers you rich. Why not take some of your income and help him out I say 20%, sounds fair to me. Your comment on rising taxes has no effect on product. How about the fact the more money I have the more I will spend, some where down the line someone is making money on what I have spent. And when that business owner does not sell a product then yes he will eventfully go out of business. If the owner raises the price of that product due to taxes then there is a chance he will have no buyers. What you are stating here is the owner needs to cut back on their life style. If so it goes back to what I was saying earlier, BO is asking us to sacrifice. The gov has plenty of money collected in taxes, they need to quit spending.
@Milspec.: your argument is a
@Milspec.: your argument is a little muddy. First of all, raising taxes on the upper end has little effect on product, yes. People who make a lot of money (say, a quarter of a million dollars a year or more) don't SPEND all of the money they make. In fact, high earners save or invest a lot more than lower earners do. They still need to spend money on the basics of life, however, and it doesn't follow that they'd spend less money on luxury/optional goods than middle-class consumers.
Second, unless taxes become very high, a business has no reason to raise prices. Only profit is taxed, and under the tax plan we're discussing here, only business owners making more than $250,000 a year would be treated differently. Those large companies would not be able to raise prices, because if they did, competitors would refrain from doing so and undercut them (because in this case, higher taxes only result in somewhat less--but still adequate--profit).
Third, Marx was actually a brilliant economist. You'd do well to read some of his works before slandering him. He wrote entire books on economics--he's not just the founder of communism. Though I question your motives for bringing him up--probably just to portray me in a negative light.
And finally, the government has historically low revenue at the moment (as a percentage of GDP). Stop ignoring this fact. Stop ignoring the fact that in the 50's, during a period of enormous economic growth, the highest tax rate was over 90%. Stop ignoring reality in favor of a flawed argument.
Hey p, are you a tax
Hey p, are you a tax accountant - hope not because, with all due respect, you're wrong.
Many small businesses are S corporations and they file as individuals. Any tax increase is going to impact their businesses. And remember, businesses don't pay taxes, consumers do.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98263,00.html
Here's a WSJ editorial explaining why Obama's policies are really targeting the middle class and there aren't enough "rich" to begin to make a dent in the debt.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870462130457626711352458355...
p says, " the government has
p says, " the government has historically low revenue at the moment". Now, could that have something to do with 9.2% unemployment?
milspec, there's no way to reason with a liberal. Hurry up 2012.
Expousing the virtues of Karl Marx - OMG! And saying it publicly. Yikes!
Sorry Calypso, but nothing
Sorry Calypso, but nothing you posted above refutes anything I said. Nice attempt at misdirection, though. Your article is nothing but an opinion fluff piece that, if you look around on the internet, was refuted when it came out a few months ago. Notice how it fixates on payroll taxes and ignores corporate taxes, capital gains tax, and other forms of taxation.
And anyway, I don't think anyone is advocating for only more taxes. More taxes and less military spending would be great. Also ending the ridiculous war on drugs (though I don't think this actually sucks up that much money) and scaling back "homeland security."
Also, while it does look like
Also, while it does look like the unemployment rate has affected tax receipts (as a percentage of GDP), look at how low those corporate tax rates are!
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205
ignoring all of your rantings, support our troops
These trainings are absolutely necessary for the crews of the ships, and for the peace of mind of the families at home while these men and women spend time on the water. Anyone saying that this is a waste of spending is wrong to the core, as I can sleep better at night knowing that my husband, who is currently attending this BTR, is properly trained along with everyone else serving in the USCG.
Thank you to everyone who serves our country, and keep so many safe and protected in the process.