22 Feb 2023 7:07 pm
It does... very infrequently, Navy ships will come upon vessels at sea that have signaled us , are DIW, or obviously in distress - maybe floundering, and we send a boarding party via Motor Whale Boat to see what assistance is needed and what, if anything we can do to provide it. The OIC carries a side arm and there are at least two gunner's mates with weapons, along with hospital corpsmen. I've done that gig three or four times over the years