USS Cape (MSI-2) by Dr PR - 1:48 - Inshore Minesweeper

[Dr PR]

Howard Chapelle once said we shouldn’t bother building yet another model of a famous ship that has already been modeled many times. Instead we should build a model of a vessel that hasn’t been modeled before.

 

I feel safe in betting that this will be the first ever model of the USS Cape MSI-2, and probably the last! To paraphrase Joseph Heller (Catch 22);

 

Among ships lacking distinction, the USS Cape stood out as the ship lacking more distinction than all the rest.

 

I feel confident that this is the least famous ship in the entire history of the US Navy. So I dedicate this build to Howard Chapelle.

 

 

 

The Cape was the second (and last) of the experimental Cove class inshore minesweepers in the US Navy. It was supposed to be a harbor and river minesweeper, but helicopters did a much better, faster and safer job. Several more vessels of this type were built for oceanographic work, but the Navy decided that it didn’t need any. Not any more, but not any at all! These were certainly the most worthless ships in the Navy. After a few frustrating years they were decommissioned. I had the distinction of being in the last active duty crew when the Navy finally decided to shitcan MSI-2 on 1 October 1969.

 

Smallest ship in the navy

 

Normally any vessel shorter than 150 feet is called a “boat.” But we had a letter from the Secretary of the Navy authorizing us to call the vessel the United States Ship (USS) Cape.

 

The ship had a length of 112 feet (34 M), a beam of 23 feet (7 M) and a draft of 10 feet (3 M). Top speed was listed as 12 knots, but on a calm sea with a tail wind we could make 13 knots. Our main armament was one .50 caliber machine gun. We had the traditional minesweeping paravanes and cable cutting sweep gear, plus a mechanical noise maker for acoustic mines, and a long "magtail" to generate signals to trigger magnetic mines.

 

The crew was 3 officers and 18 enlisted. We had a LT Officer-in-Charge, a LTJG Executive Officer, and me, a brand new Ensign fresh out of Naval Officer Candidate's School in Newport, Rhode Island. A 1st Class Bosun's Mate was the senior enlisted. I had a 1^st Class Engineman and a 2^nd Class Electrician's Mate to run Engineering, and a 3^rd Class Petty Officer to run the Supply Department. Some of the crew were from McNamara's 100,000 – men who failed to pass the Navy entrance exams but were taken anyway because the Navy was desperate.

 

The USS Cove MSI-1 and USS Cape MSI-2 were assigned to the US Pacific Fleet as part of the Pacific Mine Force in Long Beach, California. They were berthed at the head of Pier 9 where the water was too shallow for the larger MSO (ocean going) minesweepers farther out on the pier. They were part of Mine Flotilla 3 and the Cape was the flagship of Mine Squadron 11.

 

This will be a SLOW build. I am still finishing my topsail schooner and I am in the process of gathering information about the MSIs. Fortunately, I have the complete blueprint set from the National Archives on microfilm, and I have recently found a way to digitize the images at home. so I have a very detailed set of "as constructed" plans. I also have a couple dozen photos I took while aboard.

 

 

 

Blueprints are a mixed blessing. There are 180 "frames" in the blueprint set, with as many as 278 individual sheets in each frame. But of the several hundred drawings only a few are really relevant for ship modelling. The rest are internal plumbing and wiring diagrams, list of ship's furniture, lists of the little brass plates fastened above each door, and things like the calculations for the strength of the mast and resistance of the hull to hogging (it was a wooden ship).

 

But the blueprints also include the tiny details that are impossible to determine from grainy pictures and sketches. Here is an example - the dimensioned drawing showing the mounting of the ship's peloruses and searchlights. There are dozens of similar "foundation" drawings, leaving little to guesswork.

 

 

I plan to build the model mainly with wood. But I love working with brass so there will be some of that. And I think I can use 3D printing for complex things like fire strainers, anchors and anchor chains.

 

To be continued ...

Edited September 21 by Dr PR

[KeithAug]

2 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Among ships lacking distinction, the USS Cape stood out as the ship lacking more distinction than all the rest.

This looks very interesting Phil. 
Your comment reminds me of a Churchill quote. “He is a very modest man, with much to be modest about”.

 

 

[Dr PR]

Keith,

 

Exactly!

 

Thanks for the Churchill quote. I hadn't heard that before.

[TBlack]

I’ll follow along with you, Dr. PR. If only because I’m also a graduate of OCS (class of 68-05), but also because I once embarked on one of these coastal minesweepers. The amount of detail given is both a blessing and a bain. Now you have no excuse to provide the detail.

Tom

[Dr PR]

Tom,

 

I was in A6904 Company - graduated from OCS in April 1969.

 

Were you on a new MSC (Coastal Minesweeper) or an older one (MSCO). Here is a photo of the Cape outboard the USS Ruff MSCO-54 to give you an idea of the size difference. That's an even larger MSO ocean-going minesweeper behind the Cape and Ruff.

 

 

When I took this photo I had no premonition of what fate had in store for me. The Ruff was my second ship!

 

After the Cape was decommissioned the Mine Squadron didn’t know what to do with me while BUPERS decided where to assign me next. They appointed me as Officer-in-Charge of the old Coastal Minesweeper USS Ruff MSC(O)-54. My own command with just 6 months active duty! Wow! No more Ensign Fuzz. Now I was Captain Fuzz! The Ruff was the same type vessel John Wayne purchased and converted to his yacht Wild Goose.

 

Of course, there was a catch. When I reported aboard, at a private boat yard in Los Angeles, there was a huge hole in the main deck over the engine room. The funnel had been removed, followed by the Pullman diesel engines and just about anything else suitable for salvaging. You see, I was Officer-in-Charge for Decommissioning. I was the only crew assigned to the ship.

 

I found the Master Chief from the Long Beach Shipyard who was in charge of the crew scrapping the Ruff and handed him my orders. He was one of those guys who had been in so long that he left a trail of salt wherever he went. He looked surprised – I think no one bothered to tell him I was coming.

 

Before he had a chance to say anything I told him I knew nothing about decommissioning ships, and he knew I knew nothing. So I said I would stay out of his way and let him do his job. If he needed me to sign anything he could find me on top of the pilot house catching rays. So from 8-5 for a couple of weeks my duty station was OOTW (out of the way).

 

After a while I received orders to my next billet, the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5, flagship of the US Seventh Fleet home ported in Yokosuka, Japan! I reported aboard on 19 December 1969. The Okie Boat was home for about 2 1/2 years. Welcome to the real navy!

Edited September 21 by Dr PR

[TBlack]

Phil, It was an MSC. I can’t remember more than that to be helpful. She was out of Portsmouth, NH and I was doing a weekend reserve training. So what was your dep’t/job on the CLG-5?

[KeithAug]

1 hour ago, Dr PR said:

You see, I was Officer-in-Charge for Decommissioning. 

Phil - I need one of those for personal use. When I get out of bed in the morning and hobble across the bedroom floor I often contemplate my final journey to the scrapyard in the sky. 

 

11 hours ago, Dr PR said:

Some of the crew were from McNamara's 100,000 – men who failed to pass the Navy entrance exams but were taken anyway because the Navy was desperate.

 

Were they the ones trained as swimmers and armed with a big hammer?

 

I do like Churchills quotes, my favourites are:-

 

1 “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”

 

2 Lady Astor to Churchill: “If I were married to you, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Reply: “If I were married to you, I’d drink it.”

[Dr PR]

Tom,

 

I was Nuclear/Special Weapons Officer on the OK City. Follow these links if you want more details:

 

https://www.okieboat.com/Life In A Tin Box.html

https://www.okieboat.com/index.html

[Dr PR]

Keith,

 

McNamara's 100,000 was a test group to see if those who failed the Navy's entrance exam could still perform useful duties. They were draftees - the Navy took a few and the rest became grenade catchers.

 

We had two men on board from this group. Both were bosun's mates. One was a total basket case - couldn't tie his shoe laces without help. But he was a working machine - like a robot. Put him to work chipping paint and he wouldn't stop until the whole ship was stripped. You had to tell him to stop for lunch or he would work right through.

 

The other fellow was a logger from the Pacific Northwest. He had been a log truck driver before he was drafted. He was pretty smart - I figure he deliberately failed the induction tests to avoid the draft, but McNamara took him anyway! He was our helmsman.

[TBlack]

24 minutes ago, Dr PR said:

Tom,

 

I was Nuclear/Special Weapons Officer on the OK City. 

Phil, In that capacity and at that time, I assume there wasn’t much call for your services?

Tom

[Dr PR]

Tom,

 

My job was to keep the nukes from going BANG! when we didn't want them to. I was primarily Nuclear Safety Officer. I conducted training and oversaw all handling exercises to be sure the rules were followed exactly.

 

The 1960s were before we had store and forget missiles and warheads. They had to be inspected and tested periodically and that required a lot of handling. So I was kept busy.

Edited August 7 by Dr PR

[KeithAug]

13 minutes ago, Dr PR said:

My job was to keep the nukes from going BANG!

You had a successful career then Phil. We are all indebted to you!

[Jim Lad]

Phil, she may have lacked distinction, but she was still a very workmanlike looking little ship.

 

John

[Dr PR]

Jim,

 

The Cape was the flagship of MINERON 11 (I seem to have had a flagship destiny in the Navy). We didn't get underway much and the crew had a lot of time on their hands. They kept everything clean, painted and polished, very "ship shape."

[bdgiantman2]

Pretty vessel, I can see why someone would convert into a personal yacht. Thank you so much for your service, I will follow this blog with interest.

 

Brian D

[Valeriy V]

 

Phil, your stories are no less interesting than building a model!  
I will watch your work with interest.

Will your model float on water?

 

[Dr PR]

Valeriy,

 

It will be a display model. I will try to build it to your standards!

[Dr PR]

Brian,

 

The Cape was eventually converted into a private yacht. I think it is still sailing in the Puget Sound area.

Edited August 14 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

I have been plugging away at the blueprints. I have photographed all the drawings I think are necessary for the model - but I will probably discover some others that I need to copy. The microfilm images are usually 2-5 separate photos of the original paper plans. These need to be combined to make an image of the entire original sheet. I use Photoshop to put the pieces together into a single drawing file. So far I have pieced together 84 full blueprint sheets. There are a dozen or two more to do.

 

Here are the hull lines. I also have the Table of Offsets that I can use to create the frame/station lines in my CAD program.

 

 

 

These drawings will be sufficient for making the hull. It was a wooden ship, and I plan to build a wooden plank on bulkhead model. The original ship was double planked over frames. Minesweepers needed very strong hulls to withstand the shock of mines exploding close by. The inner planking was diagonal, running from the main deck level down at 45 degrees to the keel. The outer planking was the typical horizontal "strakes." The frames were on 15" (38 cm) spacing. This produced a very strong hull.

 

I considered double planking with the inner layer diagonal, but on second thought this seems like a lot of unnecessary work. It is hard enough to get planks to follow the long horizontal curves of the hull.  Getting diagonal planks to fit to the much greater vertical curvature and somehow fit into the rabbet at the bottom of the bulkhead/frames would be just asking for trouble!

 

I am still looking for the blueprints for some of the deck gear and winches. Minesweepers carried large spools of cables of several types, and had correspondingly large winches and motors to power them. The deck was crowded with sweep gear.

 

Of course the reason I want to build this model is that the Cape was my first ship when I entered the Navy, so it has special interest for me, even if no one else on the planet cares at all. Besides, it really was special in a way I hope to tell.

 

The Captain of the USS Cape was Officer-in-Charge LT Fred Buck. He was a newly promoted Lieutenant who signed on for another hitch specifically to get the command. The XO was LTJG Dave Devine, a suntanned surfer from SOCAL. He looked like a Greek god and the girls called him Devine Dave. He was also First Division (deck division) Officer.

 

And me, Ensign Fuzz, straight out of Naval Officer Candidate School (NAVOCS) in Newport, Rhode Island. I asked my detailer in Washington for assignment to any large ship that was home ported in Yokosuka, Japan. I wanted to see the world and that seemed like a good place to start.

 

And there I was on the Cape, bolted to the pier in Long Beach. When I reported aboard the Cape on 25 April 1969 the ship was in Hal Larson’s Boat Yard and Bicycle Repair Shop in San Pedro, California. Just finding it was an adventure! I say it was “bolted” to the pier because the normal term for a ship that never gets under way is “welded to the pier.” But the Cape was a wooden minesweeper, so “bolted” seemed like a better choice. We did occasionally get under way for training exercises – usually a trip around Catalina Island while the crew did some fishing. But the ship was pretty much useless so the Navy left us at the pier most of the six months I was aboard.

 

I was the officially appointed Engineering Officer, Supply Officer, Damage Control Officer, NBC Defense Officer, Health Officer, Athletics Officer, Special Services Officer, Transportation Officer, Fire Prevention Officer, MDCS Officer, Allotment Accounting Officer, Alternate RPS Custodian and Witnessing Officer, Tax Free Cigarette Custodian, Tax Free Cigarette Audit Board, Magnetic Signature Control Officer, Gas Free Engineer, Cape Recreation Council, COMTAC Publications Control Officer, COMTAC Publications Library Inspection Board, Narcotics & Alcohol Board, Educational Services Officer, Officer of the Deck, Command Duty Officer and Wardroom Treasurer.

 

Twenty four official duties! I was George, the junior officer in the Wardroom, so all the bureaucratic BS was dumped on me. Unfortunately, I knew nothing about any of these duties, except perhaps the engineering part. My father was a mechanic and I grew up in a garage. So working on engines was pretty much second nature to me.

 

My orders out of NAVOCS were to six weeks of Minesweeping Officers Course, one week of RPS Custodian School, one week Cryptographic Operators Course, and then to Supply Officer's School. But those orders were cancelled and I was ordered to report directly to the Cape with no further training. As it happens it didn't matter. We didn't do much minesweeping, the ship didn't have any cryptographic equipment or restricted pubs, and my supply petty officer seemed to know what he was doing.

Edited August 14 by Dr PR

[Javelin]

Awesome subject Phil. Always a fan of the less modelled subjects. Love the story behind it as well. 

I'll be following this one! 

[Dr PR]

Roel,

 

That certainly must be the first time anyone referred to the Cape as "awesome!"

 

You may be spoiling things here because the Cape is supposed to be the least awesome of the US Navy's ships.

Edited August 15 by Dr PR

[TBlack]

Phil, Thanks for your Navy background. You did finally make it to Yokosuka on that cruiser, and, having been a captain, you got to wear the star! Not bad!

Tom

[Javelin]

1 hour ago, Dr PR said:

Roel,

 

That certainly must be the first time anyone referred to the Cape as "awesome!"

 

You may be spoiling things here because the Cape is supposed to be the east awesome of the US Navy's ships.

Sorry Phil, but considering my own collection of colourful and rarely modelled ships, you had to know I was going to love it! 

Awesome refers to the ship as a model subject of the ship, not the ship itself 😁

 

Are you going to display it simply on a stand, or are you going to put some crew ( including yourself???) on or even deploy some of the sweeping gear? 

Edited August 14 by Javelin

[Jsk]

Phil, thank you for your service.

 

Even obscure boats need a little love now and then.

 

I'm looking forward to watching this develop.

[Dr PR]

Tom,

 

I didn't get a Command at Sea star. I don't think they have a "Command at the Wrecking Yard" star.

 

Roel,

 

I just scanned the docking plan and I think I will probably put the model on the blocks for drydocking.

[Valeriy V]

Phil, if you haven't made a final decision on the planking option for your ship, I suggest you consider my option.

I recently used it instead of diagonal planking as an experiment, and was pleasantly surprised by the result.
- plywood thickness for frames - 6 mm
- ash veneer thickness for side planking sheets - 1 mm

 

Ash veneer fibers must be placed along the length of the hull, and then it will tightly fit the frame contour without internal stress. The strength of ash allows for a minimum veneer thickness of 0.8-1 mm. The hull will then be covered with a layer of fiberglass and resin.

This method is not suitable for a floating model, as the hull will be heavy, but it is quite applicable for a static model.

[Dr PR]

Valeriy,

 

The Cape hull will be 28 inches (71.12 cm) at 1:48 scale. That is long enough that I may try your method of building two half hulls and joining them. This makes it easier to get the frame/bulkheads identical on both sides.

 

I will probably use single layer planking (with lots of bulkheads) because that is what I have always done in the past. I like the idea of individual planks because the planks were visible on the original hull.

Edited August 16 by Dr PR

[Dr PR]

I have been studying the blueprints and creating a set of plans for the model. I decided to use 21 bulkheads to give good support for the planking. Here is the center or "keel" piece. Black lines outline the part and the green lines show additional detail.

 

 

The piece will be made of two 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) thick pieces of plywood laminated together. Most of the thinner plywood is available in 12 inch (305 mm) or 24 inch (610 mm) sheets, and the hull is 27 inch (685 mm) long. Each side will be made in two pieces, one with the break near the front of the hull. The other side piece will have the break near the stern. When glued together this will produce a six-ply part 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) thick. A 1/6 inch (1.59 mm) thick "foot" will be attached to the bottom of the keel.

 

 

The bulkheads will be made from 1/8 inch (3.175 mm) plywood. In this drawing the solid lines outline the parts. The surrounding dashed lines show the outer edges of the 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) thick hull and deck planking. The red parts at the bottom of the bulkheads outline the center keel piece and the garboard strakes. The garboard strakes are not simple planks. They have a complex shape with a cross section varying from rectangular to trapezoidal, rotating with the curvature of the hull. They will probably be the most difficult parts to fabricate.

 

The actual keel on the ship was 9 1/2 inches wide (0.1979 inch or 5 mm at 1:48 scale). That is close to 3/16 inch (0.1875), so I will glue two 1/32 inch (0.79375 mm) pieces on the sides of the keel piece below the bulkheads to create the rabbet for the garboard strakes to fit against. The foot piece will be 3/16 (4.76 mm) wide.

 

The next job was to figure out how much material will be needed. I will use 3/16 x 1/6 inch (4.76 x 1.59 mm) basswood strips for the hull planking. The deck will be 1/16 x 1/16 inch (1.59 x 1.59 mm) basswood strips. I do not have a collection of tools to rip the pieces myself, so I will have to buy them commercially. Strips with these dimensions are readily available from many sources.

 

Here is a drawing of the main deck layout.

 

 

The many objects are the outlines of the superstructure, foundations for the mooring, anchoring and minesweeping gear, plus some hatches and scuttles. Most of these things were just mounted on top of the deck planking on the ship, so I will do the same. Here is a drawing of the deck planking - from this I can estimate the amount of planking strips I will need.

 

 

I enjoyed nibbing the planks into the margin boards on my Albatros build, so I am looking forward to it on this model. However, the narrow 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) planks may pose more of a challenge than the 5 mm (0.197 inch) planks on the Albatros. The outermost boards around the sides of the deck are the planksheer boards. Forward of frame 51 this board was 14 3/4 inch wide (0.307 inch or 7.81 mm at 1:48). Aft of frame 51 the planksheer was 9 1/4 inch (0.193 inch or 4.895 mm) to the stern. Across the stern the planksheer was 11 1/4 inch (0.234 inch or 5.953 mm) wide.

 

Life on the Cape

 

The XO and I shared a 9 ft. x 5 ft. (3 x 1.6 meters) stateroom, with over/under bunks, four small drawers and two feet of closet space. Fortunately, this was considered to be too small for an officer in the US Navy to live in, so we qualified for rooms at the BOQ (Bachelor Officer's Quarters) on Long Beach Naval Station.

 

Unfortunately, the officers of the Cape and Cove had acquired notorious reputations for exceptionally loud and raucous parties, with loud music and hot and cold running babes. This offended the more senior officers who lived at the BOQ, especially since they didn’t get invited to those parties. So they had the fellows kicked out of the BOQ and run off base, and they were told to live on the ship.

 

But since I was just reporting, and the officer I was relieving was technically still “living on board,” I qualified for temporary lodging. My CO suggested I not mention the name of the ship I was on. I was begrudgingly allowed to have a BOQ room, temporarily. In fact, the fellow I was relieving had an apartment overlooking Zuma Beach, and what an apartment! From the balcony there were vistas of wave after wave of bikinis! But I didn’t tell the folks at the BOQ about this, and I managed to hold on to the BOQ room while I was on the ship.

 

The senior petty officers had appropriated a minesweep and supply stores locker below deck on the stern as "Petty Officer Quarters." The remaining 15 men berthed in the bow. However, only two or three men actually lived aboard. Most had apartments in town. As a result, for breakfast and at evening meal only the duty section and a couple others were aboard. The full crew was aboard for noon meal, except some of us who went to the Officer's Club or Enlisted Men's Club for lunch.

 

We were allotted three meals a day for each enlisted man from the Navy supply system, and received much more food than the crew could consume. Even though the crew dined on steaks for supper and bacon and sausage for breakfast we had a lot left over. This created an interesting problem for the Supply Officer – me.

 

We managed to get rid of the excess food one way or the other. But the extra coffee and canned hams were saved for special occasions.

 

 

McHale's Navy

 

The Cape was McHale's Navy – for real. The ship was too underpowered to do any serious minesweeping, and just got in the way of the faster sweeps. The one time we went out on a minesweeping exercise the sweep gear got tangled in the mine cable and we had to pull out of line and let the "big boys" (MSOs) do the work. We had to haul in the gear, and the mine, and send a man over the stern to untangle things. On subsequent exercises we were either assigned to patrol the perimeter of the area, or just told to "go away and come back at 1600" (4 PM).

 

On one of these occasions we told the Cove to go dead in the water and we then tied up along side. We dumped firefighting foam (congealed cow's blood) over the stern to attract sharks and fished with some of the excess lesser quality meat. The winches and davits on the stern made great fishing gear, with enough power to reel in a whale if we caught one. We caught a good sized shark and had a barbeque on the fantail with shark steaks for supper.

 

We stowed excess 5 pound cans of coffee and canned hams in the bilges. This stuff was worth its weight in gold! When we needed something from the official Navy supply system or from the shipyard, we could submit the required paperwork and wait for it to be approved (or denied). Or we could send a man over with a 5 pound can of coffee and get what we needed immediately by cumshaw (look it up). For especially critical or costly items a canned ham delivered to the right person had a remarkable effect in speeding things up.

 

Apparently this unofficial supply system had been going on for years by the time I came aboard. It had the effect of reducing the actual cost of doing business for the ship. And that led the Navy accounting people to reduce the ship's OPTAR (budget) to reflect the official expenditures. As a result, we had an annual OPTAR of only $1200! To put this into perspective, a single non-magnetic (it was a minesweeper) 10 inch crescent wrench cost $800, or 2/3 of the annual budget! We had no choice but to use comshaw and midnight appropriations to get what we needed!

 

On one occasion a tachometer shaft broke in the main engines and we didn't have a tool to remove it. "Give me a canned ham" my leading engineman said, and he and another engineman headed over to the shipyard. A couple hours later they returned with a custom 4" socket that was 10 inches deep that fit nicely around the shaft.

 

We had a very talented cook named Johnson. He showed up mornings to prepare breakfast for the crew, and made lunch for everyone. He prepared the evening meal for the duty section before going home ashore in the evenings. He managed to make very tasty meals from the Navy standard issue materials.

 

One of his specialties was large cakes that he baked in the ship's galley. These were two to three times larger than necessary to feed the crew. But they were part of the ship's bargaining currency. I recall my leading electrician telling me we needed a part but the supply depot said it wasn't in stock. He took a good sized portion of one of Johnson's cakes and wandered off down pier nine toward the line of MSOs (ocean going minesweepers) tied up there. An hour or so later he returned with the part, and a few men on another ship got to enjoy Johnson's work.

 

Maybe now you get the idea why I think this ship should be immortalized with a model. It was unique, and certainly fit the bill to meet Howard Chapelle's suggestion to model something different.

Edited August 29 by Dr PR

[KeithAug]

Fascinating back story Phil. I look forward to more.

[TBlack]

Reminiscent of my time in the Navy. Thanks for the stories!