By James Heinz
In April of 2022 the WMHS blog posted my five part series on the history of the fireboats of Milwaukee entitled, “The Boats That Kept Milwaukee Safe.” I now conclude the saga of the Milwaukee fireboats by describing the boat that currently keeps Milwaukee safe.
The book Milwaukee Fireboats by Wayne Mutza says that in mid-2007, Milwaukee obtained its 11th fireboat, at first called Fireboat 1. In 2009, Harley Museum director Stacey Watson christened her TRIDENT. TRIDENT has two 1750 gpm pumps. She can discharge those gallons through five monitor nozzles, two in the bow, one on the pilot house roof, and two on the stern, as well as two discharge outlets.
According to the Milwaukee Fire Dept. website, “The Trident is a model of technology with twin 570 hp Cummins diesel engines supplying power to jet propelled drives capable of pushing the 39 foot Metalcraft Marine Boat over 35 knots. It has the capability of flowing 3400 gpm for fighting nearshore or offshore fires, can transport up to three critically injured victims with advanced life support care, and can perform offshore search and rescue with state of the art radar, forward-looking infrared cameras, radio direction finder, and sonar searches beneath the water’s surface.”
I recently spoke with MFD Captain Brian Giegerich, the current commander of the MFD Boat Unit. He told me that the TRIDENT was bought for about $1 million. Port security grants from the federal government after September 11, 2001, paid for the boat. As a result, TRIDENT is required to provide fire and rescue services for a five county area. “We go as far north as Ozaukee County and as far south as Kenosha County,” he said. In the summer, she is docked at Discovery World so she can also respond as far as 40 miles out into Lake Michigan. This requirement is only during the summer. From December through March the vessel is removed from the water and kept at a local marina.
Capt. Giegerich said that TRIDENT is a Coast Guard class B fireboat. She is 39.2 feet long, 13.1 feet wide, 23 feet high with the mast extended, and 14.3 feet with the mast lowered. She has a two foot draft, and weighs 23,700 pounds. TRIDENT has 45 inches of freeboard at the bow, and 37 inches of freeboard midship. Boat Team members submitted suggestions for her name, and an assistant chief chose TRIDENT.
She has a minimum crew of four, with two pilots required at all times. TRIDENT is a jet boat, which means she can reach 37 knots (42 miles per hour) in speed, and it makes the boat much more maneuverable from side to side. However, Capt. Giegerich said that the jet propulsion makes it much harder for a novice to control. He said that there is “an extensive process” of training for prospective pilots, starting with Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources boat operator training. When the boat is in the water, its crew practices every day. Once you know how to control the boat, he said it is easier to drive than a conventional boat.
Capt. Giegerich said that TRIDENT does not have any of the problems with river water that her jetboat predecessor the ROAMER had, and which resulted in the ROAMER being converted to conventional propeller drive. TRIDENT has redundant water strainers which filter out debris so that there has never been a clogging of the jet drive. The only exception to that is loose rope floating in the river; the jet drive will “suck that up.” Capt. Giegerich said that TRIDENT does have another problem that her predecessors had, the same mortal enemy that all Milwaukee fire boats have had: Bridges.
TRIDENT cannot get under all Milwaukee River bridges and it can be difficult to get the bridges raised in a timely fashion when responding to a call. As a result, the Fire Department is considering going to a two boat system as in the past. MFD would like to buy another, smaller boat to respond to drowning victims, or as Capt. Giegerich refers to them, people who have “gone subsurface.”
According to Capt. Giegerich, TRIDENT responds to about 50 calls a year during an eight month season. Most of the calls are emergency medical calls aboard pleasure craft and people who have gone subsurface. TRIDENT is as fully equipped for medical responses as any MFD land ambulance.
On August 24, 2020, your intrepid reporter got a chance to ride the TRIDENT. I boarded the boat at the Discovery World dock. It was training day for new and established boat pilots. There were 12 firefighters along that day. Captain Giegerich saw us off but was unable to accompany us.
Heavy Equipment Operator Matthew Byrge told me that many of the boat pilots also have Coast Guard captain licenses. He also discussed shipboard fires that the TRIDENT has been called to respond to. He said that since merchant vessels have crews trained in fire suppression, “if they are calling us, it must be pretty bad.” The most common scenario is that the freighter crew will extinguish the fire out in the lake, and then call the TRIDENT to meet them when they dock so fire department personnel can confirm that the fire is out.
Earlier last year HEO Byrge and other firefighters toured the freighter ROGER BLOUGH at Sturgeon Bay. The BLOUGH caught fire on February 1, 2021, as it was in winter layup. HEO Byrge said that the BLOUGH’s deck plates were “twisted” by the fire.
He explained that shipboard fires are particularly challenging to fight. The steel construction of the ships make ventilating smoke filled compartments difficult. Firefighters had to use a cutting torch to gain entry to some compartments of the BLOUGH.
The steel construction of ships also transmits heat. HEO Byrge said that the BLOUGH’s fire alarms did not activate, and the first thing the on board ship keeper knew of the fire was when his shoes melted to the deck. News reports said that temperatures reached 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Captain Scott Alwin, who is also the commander of the dive team, told me that in addition to their DNR certification, many TRIDENT pilots also have Coast Guard captain licenses. Many of the crew are rescue swimmers and members of the dive team as well.
Capt. Alwin explained that the TRIDENT has two jet drive engines and two pumps, one pump per engine. If the pump is being used, then the engine cannot be used for propulsion. Both pumps draw from the same sea chest in the stern. The boat’s pumping capacity is equal to that of two land based engines.
The TRIDENT can support land based firefighting in two ways. Captain Giegerich told me: “One is by pumping water through a 5 inch supply line connection at the stern. The other is by unscrewing tips off the monitors to connect either a 2.5 inch or 1.5 inch hose directly to the monitors.”
The TRIDENT may also be the most maneuverable boat ever made. Since the jet drives do not run in reverse, each drive is equipped with a “bucket” that can be lowered over the jet drive to redirect the jet drive in a different direction. This is similar to the thrust reversers on a commercial airliner or the retro rockets on a spacecraft. Using the buckets, the TRIDENT can back out of a bad situation, or turn 360 degrees within its own length. It can also “crab” sideways.
The boat has three holds: stern, cabin, and bow. The bumper on the bow of the boat can be used to push other boats. There is a central air supply that firefighters can connect their breathing masks to so that they can fight a fire even in the middle of smoke. It is supposed to be self-righting, although that feature has not been tested.
TRIDENT has three fully equipped EMS stations with suction and oxygen connections. A metal roller on the bow can be used to roll stretchers in and out of the pilot house through the middle window of the pilot house, which can be raised.
As a former diver, I was interested in the features for diving. There is a large platform that runs the width of the stern, with a ladder for divers to come out of the water. There are lights under the platform for the divers, and sturdy clamps to hold dive tanks along the sides. It was a great improvement over the improvised diving facilities I encountered on many dive boats.
The first thing I experienced was when they brought the TRIDENT up to its full speed of 42 miles an hour. Firefighter Trevor Pinkalla told me to hang on to one of many handholds positioned around the boat, and I am glad I did. As the boat “got up on the step” it created a passage of wind so intense I took my hat and glasses off to prevent them from being sucked off. Persons in distress will be happy to know that the boat can move so fast.
It turns out that steering the boat is much like flying my Cessna. The faster it goes, the quicker the control response. According to those who were taking turns practicing driving it, at low speed the boat sort of wallows around. It takes a great deal of control input and the driver must make a control input change well before the boat gets to the spot where it needs to turn. There is no rudder.
The boat operates with a pilot, who steers it, and an engineer, who controls the pumps and nozzles. Once out in the harbor, the crew practiced using the two bow nozzles and the nozzle mounted on top of the pilot house. The nozzles can be adjusted to be either straight stream or fog spray and are aimed with a joy stick. The boat can be turned by setting the water stream to a straight stream, going to full power, and the pointing the stream at the surface of the lake, using the nozzle like a water jet.
When I was a child, my parents would often take me to Sunday brunch at the Alonzo Cudworth VFW post on Prospect Avenue overlooking the lake. The former fireboat DELUGE would come out into the lake on Sunday mornings and test its pumps by spraying water into the air. Now I got a change to see what it looked like from inside the spray.
TRIDENT is also equipped with electronic navigation equipment and side scan sonar. Firefighter Pinkalla showed me the continuous digital navigation display which shows the location of every known shipwreck in the area, including ones I had never heard of. He explained that this would help in the event a dive boat calls for help and gives its position as being at one of those wrecks.
HEO Byrge told me that the TRIDENT had responded to a request from Sheboygan area authorities to help locate the body of a drowning victim using the boat’s side scan sonar. TRIDENT located a promising target and divers were sent down to investigate the target, which turned out to be a large tire from a farm tractor. How a large farm tractor tire ended up in the middle of Lake Michigan is another Mystery of the Great Lakes.
After three hours we returned to the dock at Discovery World. I thanked the members of the Milwaukee Fire Department who had shown me what a remarkable vessel they command. Citizens of the five county area should rest assured that the best in maritime rescue technology is available to them if they ever need it.
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James Heinz is the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society’s acquisitions director. He became interested in maritime history as a kid watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures on TV. He was a Great Lakes wreck diver until three episodes of the bends forced him to retire from diving. He was a University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee police officer for thirty years. He regularly flies either a Cessna 152 or 172.
Photo at top of page: Milwaukee Fireboat TRIDENT testing her water spray with the USCGC NEAH BAY standing by on Lake Michigan. Photo by Trevor Pinkalla.
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