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Barnstormin’ : Stop and Smell the Submarines


Barnstormin’ : Stop and Smell the Submarines

I’ve written a lot over the last few years about how gearheads look at the world a different way than “regular” folks do. There’s a level of engagement with your surroundings that comes about when your interest is piqued by a fender sticking out of an old garage, a huge tow truck on the side of the road, a mighty crane at work, or the rotting hulk of an old car in someone’s front lawn. Both of my young sons have caught this whole BangShift bug  at a young age and it makes for some interesting weekends. Take this last one for an example.

On Saturday I gathered the boys and we went over to visit with my friends Dana and Jon at their machine shop to check on the progress of their nostalgia nitro Funny Car. We hung out there for a while and had a good look at the chassis with the big blown hemi sitting in it, ran our hands over the bare fiberglass body which was heading over to the paint shop, and generally oogled some of the gnarliest speed parts and go fast junk mankind has to offer. The kids were asking some good questions and I was happy that both of them (even the three year old) noted that the engine had a blower strapped to the top of it within about five minutes of being in the shop.

On Sunday I had to ditch out on Kerri and the kids to head down to Connecticut with BangShift contributing photographer Dave Nutting. We were there in sub-zero temps shooting photos and video of a truly awesome Kenworth dump truck that will be featured here on BS in a short while (yes, there were BIG burnouts involved). The boys were ready and waiting at the front door for a full report on the truck, a peek at the photos and we all shared in the same goofy ass laughter watching the video of the giant truck destroy the rear tires.

Monday (which is technically not the weekend but was a holiday) brought the biggest (literally) dose of gearhead family fun. Several weeks back, Tom was looking at YouTube videos on his iPod Touch and saw some footage of submarines. He told Kerri and I that he really wanted to see a submarine in person some day. This triggered Kerri to remember that there is an old sub in permanent dry dock up in Portsmouth, NH. As it turns out you can actually pay a couple of bucks and go inside. The kids totally geeked out at the prospect of seeing this old sub so we bundled them up the next morning and headed north to see the USS Albacore, an old diesel electric sub that was used as what amounts to a development mule for the technology we see in modern sub design today. For the princely sum of 10 clams the whole family got unfettered access to the ship and you’ll see a detailed photo tour later this week here on BS. It was about 20 degrees outside and about 10 degrees inside the Albacore. The kids loved it. They were laying in the tiny bunks, sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking up the periscope and pawing the giant and odd diesel engines that generated the power for the batteries. The were asking questions galore and I was doing my best to be both accurate and basic with my answers. After making a trip through, the boys wanted another go and Kerri wanted heat, so she went to the car and we went back into the sub! It was surreal to think that 55 men lived inside a 205′ long and 27′ wide tube. I don’t think the boys really got that part.

After leaving the sub we got some lunch and I didn’t reveal the ace I had hiding up my sleeve to finish the day. The “big finish” was a visit to the actual port area of Portsmouth and more specifically to a lot adjacent to a sand and salt company that is right there on the water. Why a sand and salt company? Mostly because we could sit and watch the cranes and tractors work for a little while. It is gearhead entertainment in the most pure form. A giant cargo ship with a bulldozer lowered down into the hold, a pair of massive Manitowoc cranes with clam shell buckets, salt and sand piles that are probably 50 feet tall with big loaders and dozers working on top of them and rigs both large and small coming in and out being loaded. It beats showgirls and even the best Hollywood movie by a country mile. Kerri is a girl, so she is inherently smarter than me and the boys all combined. Knowing that, she stayed in the car. We were out there freezing our asses off for a short while, not really saying much, but all watching the same show.  30,000 other people probably drove by and gave none of this whole spectacle a second look. Insulated in their personal transportation pods, maybe checking email on their phone, ignoring their kids’ questions about the huge ship and the big cranes, they were too busy or disengaged to care. A sad situation for sure.

We often lament the fact that we’re not sure where the “next generation” of car guys or gearheads is going to come from. It isn’t coming from the people who drive their Camry to yoga class three nights a week while their kid plays shoot ’em video games. It isn’t coming from the guy who brings his BMW to the local Quikkie Lube every three thousand miles for an oil change and sits in the waiting room while someone else does it.

It is coming from the people who encourage their kids to look out the windows while cruising in the car (even if it is a shitbox Pacifica), who expose their kids to  stuff that’s way beyond their mental reach like old submarines, who sit and stare at wonders of human ingenuity like mighty cranes and huge articulating tractors, who bring their kids to car shows and races, who fix their own stuff and are tolerant enough to have a little guy or girl around to grab a wrench or tell you that the oil spattered on your face looks like a pony.

Lament gets us and the future of this hobby nowhere. Doing stuff does. Stop and smell the submarines. We’ll all be better off for it in the long run.

Huge salt and sand pile in Portsmouth NH

Huge salt and sand pile in Portsmouth NH


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3 thoughts on “Barnstormin’ : Stop and Smell the Submarines

  1. Paul

    My two year old is obsessed with cars and trucks as much as I am. Thanks for posting the video of the Russian tractor stuck in the river. Joey and I watched at least a half dozen times the other night while the wife was out. In the end we lost a good 45 minutes to other videos of trucks stuck in the mud.

  2. Whelk

    Naval people still talk about Albacore hull submarines. The WW2 style subs were limited to about 7 knots submerged. The shape of the hull made them uncontrollable any faster. With the advent of the Albacore hull speed was only limited by power. The Albacore could go 20 knots with the same motors that could only get a Gato to 7. It was a real game changer.

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