THE FRIDAY FOTO (January 6, 2023)

DELIVERY AT SEA.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class David Negron) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

We wonder if Amazon ever delivers this way. Sailors aboard the Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur receive supplies on pallets from the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Guadalupe during  a seaborne resupply on December 28, 2022 in the Philippine Sea.

Replenishment at sea is a method of transferring fuel, ammunition, food and other supplies from one ship to another while under way. It’s a tricky, inherently dangerous procedure. Both ships have to maintain the same speed as they send and receive fuel hoses and other lines and cables to pump fuel and swing cargo over the water separating the two ships. Click here to see a video explaining the procedure and what the risks are.

A shot line is fired from the receiving vessel to the supply vessel. That line is used to pull across a messenger line. The messenger is used to pull across other lines and equipment.

Civilian-manned ships of the Military Sealift Command like the Guadalupe are not commissioned ships; their status is “in service,” rather than “in commission.” They are, nonetheless, Navy ships in active national service, according to the Navy, and the prefix “USNS” (United States Naval Ship) was adopted to identify them.

USS Decatur is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. Part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group, Decatur is currently underway with the U.S. 7th Fleet conducting routine operations. The 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed, numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with 35 maritime nations in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.