WPC-1113 Richard Dixon and Stealthy Sidekick

Over six years ago, I posted with a title this one mimics.  Richard Dixon is to the left, clearly USCG white, indicating its primary mission.  My question is what color is the larger vessel to the right?

Maybe you can guess more about this vessel below.  The photo comes from a secret salt from a small Caribbean port I will also leave nameless.

 

So the unidentified patrol vessel is the P-840 Holland, 355′ offshore patrol vessel for the Royal Netherlands Navy.   The design is intended to minimize radar visibility, but the color is also a blue gray said to camouflage it on the horizon better than gray.

Contrasting with that blue, check out the gray of LHD 7, USS Iwo Jima, which arrived in the sixth boro a few days ago in honor of Veterans Day.

Top three photos come thanks to Capt. Nemo.  The fourth was taken by Will Van Dorp.

For more gray, click here.

 

 

Government Ships 3

Appropriately I haven’t used this title in a year;  “government ships” entitled the post a year ago when I was in town for the grand entrance for Fleet Week 2008.  I’m indebted to the vigilant bowsprite for catching the recessional . . . the fleet processing out the sixth boro for watery parts not yet revealed.  Intended or not, schooner Pioneer certainly had an up-close-and-personal here with DDG-80 Roosevelt.  That’s Ellis Island, in one of its many moods, in the background.

Bowsprite also recorded Iwo Jima‘s exit past the Morris Canal.

Here Roosevelt received visitors for a week at the Manhattan passenger terminal.

Given my recent post on the gunnery to be carried aboard Onrust, whose maiden voyage to the sixth boro will happen next week, I made it a point to find out about DDG-80‘s Mark 45 inside the red circle below.

Bow view of LHD-7 Iwo Jima.  Note the lone sailor on duty at bow just to port of the mast; he was from Texas and thrilled by the New York welcome he got.   The surprises for me waited inside the “well” or well deck:

a landing craft with twin Kort nozzles (as well as some barnacles on the hull) and

(what’s this . . . an 11′ diameter propeller . . .

another 11′ diamter propeller ??)  Aha!  it’s the starboard and port propulsion fan of one  LCAC . . . with

some jacuzzi jet drive vehicle on its back.  I wish now I’d gone onto this small patrol craft, because it’s bringing to mind a children’s song about a hole in the bottom of the sea…  like    “there’s a inflatable on a patrol craft on the LCAC in the well deck of the LHD in the harbor . . . of the island at the center of the world . . .”   (Good luck trying to set that to music!)

But here’s the biggest surprise for me:  a sign that I believed carried some security code:  #NYCFW.  Wrong . . . this is twitter speak!!!!  The secret tweeting world I’ve avoided was staring me right in the face.

Many thanks to Jed and technosavvy Elizabeth for information used here.

Fotos 1 and 2 by bowsprite;  all other by Will Van Dorp.