Boats chart my course
USS Pampanito SS-383 in San Francisco
by Christine Kling
Last week I wrote about trying to find a new boat name for my character’s boat. I had suggestions in the blog comments, on Facebook and via email, but I haven’t made a decision yet on what boat name to choose for Cole, so I will report on the results of that next week.
The skipper’s cabin
This week I’d like to talk about the way boats influence my books – especially the historical ones. Yes, in my work in progress, Dragon’s Triangle, I have another submarine. It seems I cannot get away from this fascination with World War II subs. In this case, however, it was a boat name that led me to it. When I was casting my net for an idea for this new novel, I decided first that I wanted the book to be set in the Philippines because I found Cole’s conspiracy theory. Then when I was doing research on missing WWII ships, I happened upon the story of the USS Bonefish. Now, this name reached out and grabbed me because it was the name of Riley’s sailboat, and a traditional boat name for her family.
The aft torpedo tubes
But when I took my big research trip last November to Thailand and the Philippines, I decided to fly out of San Francisco so that I could visit with my sister. It was purely by accident that I stumbled onto the San Francisco Maritime Park where they have the USS Pampanito, a WWII Balao class submarine, the model that came after the Gato class (like Bonefish), but which had very few changes made to the interior layout.
When stuff like that keeps falling in your lap, it’s difficult to ignore. I mean, I don’t believe in fate or anything, but when something captures a writer’s imagination, I think it would be foolish for the writer to ignore it. And getting the chance to go aboard a sub very similar to the one I’m writing about was pure research gold.
The head on the USS Pampanito
When writing scenes that take place aboard the sub all I have to do is go to my collection of photos that I took that day aboard the sub. I can see easily describe the galley area to describe the tables or what the surface of the floors was like. And as a sailor, I was fascinated by the head! These boats were designed to carry 60 men, but at the time she disappeared, the USS Bonefish had a crew of 10 officers and 75 enlisted men – and they only had two heads that I saw on the Pampanito! While I don’t suppose I’ll be setting any scenes in the head, seeing the conditions these men had to live in — sleeping in bunks on top of torpedoes — will really help me in writing the characters who are aboard my sub in my book.
Maybe I get too hung up on all this research and trying to make my fiction based in as close to a real world as I can make it, but it is my passion. To the best of my ability, I try to get it right in my boat scenes.
So the name of this sub led me to my story and stumbling on this museum sub in a San Francisco visit clinched it. Now I just have to figure out what happens on board!
Fair winds!
Christine
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I was in the USNR in 1950 and got to take a 2 week cruise aboard the USS Segundo (SS-398). She had not been converted to a snorkel and still had the 5"-25 on the deck which I got to fire. I remember the two heads, one pumped straight over the side and the other into a holding tank. One was for officers and the other for enlisted. I was doing my qualifications so had to learn which tubing went where and what gear did what. I usually stood JT-Sonar watches which was a passive sonar where I just listened, identified screw types and took screw turn counts on ships. I was the junior seaman aboard, so had to bring the torpedo recovery davit up from under the forward deck. It weighed more than I did. Tradition.
