Friday, February 9, 2001

By Wayne Specht
Stars and Stripes

Mother Nature, not the will of Japanese politicians, canceled the USS Blue Ridge’s visit to the port city of Tomakomai in Hokkaido.

The visit originally was opposed by Tomakomai Mayor Tadayuki Torikoshi, who last month asked the U.S. consul general in Sapporo to call off the visit because the busy port would not have sufficient space for the vessel.

The socialist mayor also wanted assurances that the Blue Ridge was not carrying nuclear weapons.

But it was exceptionally low tides that stopped the ship’s sailors from going ashore.

The low tides, affected by lunar phases, would have made docking in the port hazardous so the commander of the 19,200-ton vessel decided it will head back to its home port of Yokosuka Naval Base where it was expected to arrive sometime Friday.

"Tidal ranges would not have been sufficient for the Blue Ridge’s draft, so the commanding officer on advice of the (Japanese) harbor pilot decided it would not be safe to enter the port," Jon Nylander, a 7th Fleet spokesman, said Thursday.

The Blue Ridge needed about a 30-foot draft to safely enter the port, Nylander said. It anchored near the port’s entrance Wednesday as the ship’s skipper and a Tomakomai Port Authority pilot reviewed charts and diagrams.

"The berth was in a deep enough part of the harbor," Nylander said, "but there’s a hump in the entrance to the port they were concerned with."

Although the ship might have made it into the port at high tide, he said, low tide could have presented a problem.

Port workers said at lowest tide, there might have been about a foot between the ship’s hull and the harbor floor.

"They like to have more leeway than that," Nylander said. "For general purposes, that’s dry land."

There was some confusion among port officials about the Blue Ridge’s correct draft, or the amount of water it displaces.

Last December, Japan’s Maritime Safety Agency told the city the ship’s draft is 32 feet, a figure larger than the 30-foot draft listed for the Blue Ridge.

Kojiro Kitamura, director of Tomakomai’s Planning and Coordination Department, said the depth of water at the east pier where the Blue Ridge was to have docked is 30 feet.

"This would be impossible because the ship’s draft is 32 feet," Kitamura said Thursday.

Port officials found another berth for the Blue Ridge at the east side of the port, however, port workers needed 16 hours to reinforce the berth. Navy officials by then had decided to cancel the visit.

According to the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Web site, the moon will be at full phase tonight.

Lunar phases have a direct influence on tides and a University of South Carolina Web site shows Tomakomai’s tidal ranges Wednesday varied from 5 feet at high tide, to a low of 13 inches at low tide.

The Navy scheduled the visit to coincide with the Sapporo Snow Festival now under way in Sapporo, 25 miles northwest of the port. Diplomatic functions, sports events and a community relations project also were planned during the three-day stay.

Nylander said Blue Ridge crew members were disappointed with Wednesday’s developments.

"They were looking forward to going," he said. "They may try again another time."

Hiroshi Chida contributed to this report.

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