OKINAWA, Japan (Feb. 6, 2015) -- Invention was born of necessity for the 835th Transportation Battalion, stationed at Naha Military Port in Okinawa, Japan, when an upload for Pacific Pathways presented unusual challenges Jan. 20-21.
For the port operations, a deployment and distribution management team, or DDMT, from the 835th Transportation Battalion partnered with Soldiers from the 10th Regional Support Group and the U.S. Army Vessel Port Hudson, Marines from III Marine Corps Expeditionary Force, and the Navy from White Beach and Military Sealift Command.
Military Sealift Command booked the USNS Sgt. Matej Kocak, an 821-foot-long cargo ship, to carry cargo for Pacific Pathways exercises, but the ship's draft, at 33.5 feet, was too deep for the Naha Military Port.
The only satisfactory port available on Okinawa for the time allotted was the Navy's own White Beach Pier. Loading the ship at White Beach was complicated because of the strength of the pier bollards, the depth of the port, the tides, and the weather, said Capt. Kurt Reynolds, 835th Transportation Battalion operations officer.
Once the ship arrived, it could not lower its stern, roll-on-roll-off ramp onto the pier to load cargo. Although the ship has cranes with which it can load, the size of the load out and the position of already-stowed cargo on the ship would have made loading solely with ships cranes a very long process.
Because Army landing craft were already prepositioned at the Naha Military Port under the Pacific Utilities and Logistics Support Enablers - Watercraft, also known as PULSE-W, initiative, Lt. Col. Charles Novotny, commander of the 835th Transportation Battalion, together with Lt. Col. Scott Williams, 10th Regional Support Group officer in charge of security, plans and operations, came up with the idea to use the U.S. Army Vessel Port Hudson as a platform to load cargo onto the Kocak.
"That is one of the landing craft's capabilities, so it's not a new idea, but it had never been tried on a ship this large," Novotny said. "Once we tried it and it did work, it's now another proven capability for Army watercraft."
"We used the landing craft on the stern ramp and then we also had the LCU [Landing Craft Utility] pull alongside the ship to use the port side ships cranes. It was almost like having two piers to maximize organic lift capability on the vessel," Novotny said.
Before the ship could be loaded using this method, the team first had to use a concrete boat ramp at White Beach to load cargo and vehicles onto the landing craft through its bow ramp. Then the landing craft maneuvered bow to stern with the Kocak, so the two ships' ramps could meet. To stabilize the two craft for loading, crews lashed the two ships together. The port operations team loaded vehicles onto the Kocak through the ramps while using the ships cranes to load other cargo from the pier.
Reynolds said using an Army landing craft for loading had advantages and disadvantages.
"On the pro side, we could use the Kocak's stern ramp even though pier restrictions would have prevented it otherwise. As a disadvantage, you're at the mercy of how fast you can get the vehicles onto the LCU. Then the LCU has to sail over and tie up to the ship, and the vehicles have to drive off the ramp afloat," Reynolds said.
Not only did the team have to use a new method to load the ship, the ship itself had to have assistance to stay at dock during the loading operations.
"We had to have a lot of waivers in order to get the Kocak into White Beach," Reynolds said. "The Navy had to do an assessment to come up with the requirements of how much weight the pier could sustain and how much weight the ship was putting on the pier.
"A tug also had to remain alongside the ship during port operations," he said.
In spite of the time it took to load the landing craft, sail to the vessel, tie up, and then offload cargo onto the ship, the team worked continuous shifts to transfer and load almost 400 pieces of cargo and equipment on board the Kocak in 33 hours.
"It was great team effort between the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, given all the restrictions, to load this high amount of cargo onto a vessel in 33 hours in order to ensure operational timelines were met," Novotny said.
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