brave guys hanging it out there for others.

quality training saved them.

many thanks

Brian,

I had to take a HUET course before going offshore to an oil rig. This was 5 years ago, but there are two points that stuck with me. First, was that on average, one oil service helicopter goes down every day. The second was a helicopter that went down off of Nigeria, with 12 aboard. Six of the crewmembers were expats, and trained in helicopter escape, the other six were Nigerian nationals, and untrained in helicopter escape. All six of the expats servived, all six of the nationals perished.

Back to freighter, I heard that since they didn't plan to stop in Alaskan waters, they weren't required to have survival suits for the crew.

My middle son is a helo pilot for the USCG. He was stationed in Kodiak for 3 years some time ending about 3 years ago.

When he first arrived the USCG did not have the funding to allow immediate provision of cold weather survival gear. It took a while to arrive.

We offered to buy it (it is not cheap) but the gear arrived before the young man could bring himself to ask for the money.

The job is definitely risky. Training is surely important. But it is intolerable that equipment is not available when needed for operations that are predictably risky and not forced by a time of war.

(GRRRRR ... Off my soap box.)

Brian, I did not know you had retired from the coast guard. I am so glad you were not involved in that . What are you up to these days? Will you be doing bear hunting transport service? Rufous.