By Petty Officer 3rd Class

Lisa A. Ferdinando

 

NEW LONDON, Conn. – “All hands abandon ship!”

The emergency drill blared that final message, just over an hour after the first urgent communication pierced the pre-dawn quiet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on Aug. 14.

Roused from sleep at the first urgent call, swabs hustled to respond, thus beginning the daylong Sea Trials, the culminating event of Swab Summer.

“It’s been intense for sure,” Marshall Reyburn, of Denver, said. “We got up at 3 a.m., and we’ve been constantly going since then.”

With exercises such as treading water while holding a brick overheard and carrying an approximately 200-pound log through campus, swabs completed eight stations that challenged them physically and mentally, said Lt. Jared Silverman, the company officer for Bravo Company.

The Sea Trials showcase the skills and knowledge swabs acquired since reporting as civilians seven weeks ago for Swab Summer, the indoctrination period for first-year students.

Being successful in Sea Trials required teamwork, said Sydney Johnson of Suffolk, who was chosen earlier in the summer by cadet summer leadership as the top-performing swab who most embodied the training values taught to him since Reporting-In Day.

The morning his company did Sea Trials started off “rough,” he said, but the swabs learned they had to work together to achieve the common goal. Sea Trials were a “pretty interesting experience,” Johnson said.

The exercises are new to the swabs, Silverman explained, requiring them to figure out who will lead and how to work as a team.

“It’s really amazing to see them work as a team, morph as a team to go through different phases of team building and then to come out with a finished product at each stage,” he said.

After a rigorous, hour-long workout to simulate the physical exhaustion of abandoning ship, swabs went on to the various stations, including running to a cove and paddling back on a boat, then carrying the raft overhead together around the quarter-mile track.

“We try to make it as real as possible, so we try and incorporate search and rescue, survival skills (and) counter-drug operations,” Silverman said. “The best that we can, we try and incorporate the skills that they’ll be using when they get out there in the operational Coast Guard.”

Sea Trials, he said, are designed to be “physically and mentally challenging, a little emotionally challenging as well.”

Swabs did a mock boarding to search for “drugs” on two of the academy’s training tug boats. They demonstrated their knowledge of seamanship through tying and untying knots and were tested on Coast Guard history, statistics and basic nautical terms.

They navigated an obstacle course that included climbing ropes and scaling walls. Drenched in sweat, they showcased their athletic abilities by completing as many situps and pushups as they could.

In the survival-at-sea exercise, swabs had to apply their knowledge of inflating their operational uniforms to stay afloat, while holding a brick over their head.

“What I saw down there was some great teamwork, a lot of caring about their shipmates. They performed well and exactly how their cadre taught them throughout the summer,” Silverman said.

The swim event was a great team-building exercise, said Cadet 1st Class Sam Williams of San Antonio, the executive officer for Golf Company.

“Normally swabs aren’t allowed to talk to each other in these environments, but we allowed them to speak to one another to determine what technique works best to hold the bricks above their heads,” he said.

“It’s physically exhausting and a really good exercise,” he said.. Even those who could not participate due to injury, he said, were right alongside cheering and providing strategic advice.

Every event at the Sea Trials has real-world implications.

Coast Guard men and women must be mentally and physically fit and ready to respond to emergencies. They serve as boarding officers who interdict migrants, drugs and weapons. They have to know survival skills in the water, and be able to readily adapt and overcome challenges.

For the Coast Guard Academy Class of 2019, the challenge of the Sea Trials is over, and Swab Summer has come to a close. This week, swabs received their shoulderboards, ending the indoctrination period and signifying the start of the next chapter of their journey at the academy.

Johnson, who went through the Academy Introduction Mission program and the Coast Guard Academy Scholars program, said he looks forward to starting the school year.

“The thing about Swab Summer is about getting the whole picture. Even though you may be the fastest, the strongest, the smartest at indoc, you are just one person,” Johnson said. “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.”