As a Marine I was once aboard a fleet carrier...and at the time we were up on the Philippine Sea, and orders came down over the speaker to prepare for something, I didn't hear what exactly but it only took a few seconds to realize that every sailor on the ship was in a hurry to do something so I asked a CPO what was happening....all he said was typhoon. Shortly I was relived of duty temporarily and told to go below. Again I asked a sailor what we were going to do, he told me we were running for port. The Typhoon had evidently changed directions and I asked how far it was to land...he smiled and said just 5 miles....straight down, we were up on the deepest place in the ocean and running for our lives. My intro to Sea Duty! Before I went below I noticed one of our escort vessels, which was a DD I think, in the distance and it looked very tiny out there in the sea where it would enter a trough amidst the huge swells and seemed to have sunk, but no...it bobbed up again and I thought in my mind that this ship and any others that small were not going to make it through this, because I was on the biggest ship out there and it was like a roller coaster. It was bad, especially the first time one has ever been on blue water. I've been aboard a few ships after that but never felt like I was about to meet my maker.

It was said that Bath built is best built. The Iron Works in Bath, Maine still produces high quality ships for the US Navy. The three Zumwalt class ships are also products of BIW. We folks in Bath are proud of the Navy and the excellent Bath built ships they sail.