I served onboard PC-Class ships from 2008-2012. These ships are small with only four officers and 24 enlisted. in 2010, we were prepping for a two-week underway off the coast of Virginia for a training exercise. Sailors on these ships rely on coffee so we can stay awake for long hours and is definitely helpful when standing the mid and rev watches.

about 30 minutes before we pulled the brow, we noticed we had only one can of coffee remaining. And of all sailors, our CHENG discovered we were almost out of coffee! He quickly called the skipper of our dilemma and our senior enlisted chewed out our cook.

Our Skipper, as genius as he was, told CHENG to, "come up with an engineering casualty," which he did. Our "casualty" caused a delay in our underway time and our cook quickly ran down the pier, got in his car, and drove to the commissary to buy more coffee. Shortly after his return, the "casualty" was repaired.

Our Commodore questioned the skipper about the cause of the casualty. I am not sure what was said, but that is the first and only time I ever saw a ship not get underway due to no coffee. I guess a cup of Joe is more important than fuel to run our ships!

- Mark C.