I was googling some naval stuff, and hit on a mention of two US vessels that had the annual job of picking up elephant seals for the San Diego zoo*, with a mention that the book's author had used the story, so followed the link, and hey, Sovay candy...

The page I was reading is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle-class_patrol_craft, and as well as linking to the page on the film, it links to an extract from the book at https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2004/feb/19/i-cover-waterfront/?page=2#

TLDR: no, only thing I saw was the wiki page.


*Needing to do it annually does not impress!