Career Path > Navy Nuke
Pro's and Con's
Preciousblue1965:
Well I can only speak from a Carrier standpoint. Normal 6 month yard periods usually go like this.
Beginning: Usually starts after a 6+month deployment. The first month after the deployment is supposed to be a standdown. Minimal work. YEA RIGHT. During the Standown, the yardbirds will come in and try to get started with the overhaul. Lots of paperwork, tagouts, getting systems shutdown, etc. This goes on for about 45-60 days once it starts.
Middle: The only good thing during shipyard period. Generally, not a lot going on, shipyard owns every system, nothing is running, very little maintenance for ship crew to do. This is when a lot of people go to various schools for the navy. Most of the time this will be where you will maximize duty section rotation and liberty. Lasts about 2-3 months
End: Kiss your life goodbye for about 1 to 2 months. My old boat went Port/Stbd duty section rotation. Basically you had 27 hours on the boat, 21 off, back on for 27(after preshift briefings, watch turnover, and having to stick around for Happy Hour cleaning untill 9 am). Watch rotation was 6 on/6 off and had a dedicated maintenance team of non-watchstanders. Some boats go to lock shift work but not sure how that works. Shipyard will wait until the last minute to get everything done, and then even add about double the intial jobs in the last few weeks. LIFE WILL SUCK. No getting around it. it will suck harder than anything you have ever witnessed in life.
Fast Cruise: This where you stay on the boat for several days and pretend to be underway. No one leaves, especially nukes. Everything is running and being tested except the engines(althought have heard of some carriers testing the mains out with steel lines tying them down). After about 2 days, topsiders get to go home and RX Dept stays onboard to ensure that everything that the yardbirds broke gets fixed prior to underway.
Sea Trials: The only interesting underway you will have. No planes, no chowdales, just ship's crew. Go out, test everything shipyard worked on, Fix anything they touched, and put the ship through some interesting things. Crashbacks, Full speed rudderswings(hard turns that make the ship pitch over about 45 degrees both directions) and other fun things. Only underways I really enjoyed.
Hope that helps. Don't know about Subs but from what I hear they suck just as bad if not worse. Sure you don't go underway but towards the end you will wsh that you were underway. Shipyard periods really suck hard core.
rumrunner:
--- Quote from: Preciousblue1965 on Mar 20, 2008, 11:09 ---Shipyard periods really suck hard core.
--- End quote ---
I never thought I'd say that when the Nimitz first entered Newport News for 18 months back in 1983, but towards the end I couldn't wait to move the ship back to pier 12 at Norfolk. I had to see the Captain for a check-out on some qual (LELT or PPWS, I forget) when we were about ready to leave the yards, and I told him the same thing (no, I wasn't sucking up for a sign-off. He asked the question).
What really was bad was the poor saps who couldn't afford to live in civilian land. They stayed on a barge in the yard and had to carry their hardhats and steel-toed shoes with them on liberty since they were required whenever on shipyard property. We'd see these guys in downtown Hampton with yellow hardhats tied to their shorts, wearing their boondockers, and you couldn't help but laugh.
And there is nothing quite like the stunning cruelty of a fast cruise in the shipyard. I had a man who's wife went into labor and they wouldn't let him leave until a regularly scheduled whaleboat ran from the ship to the end of the pier. Seriously. He had approved leave so he yelled at the yardbird running the crane on the pier to swing the bucket onto the elevator. He got in the bucket and went to the hospital. They wrote him up for leaving the ship in an unapproved manner! The chief got the charge dropped.
I don't know how it is now, but when at Norfolk we usually had quarters and secured to the duty section by 0900.
Preciousblue1965:
Well my last PIA(carrier overhall) the last 45 days or so were port/stbd duty with 6x6 watch rotations. I was WCS and one of the few people that knew how to write tagouts in SOMS(practically could tag out almost anything from memory if I had to) so even though I stood my 6 hour watch I would be up the next 6 hours writing up tags and WAFs for yardbirds to work on something for the third and forth time. Our ship had Happy Hour from 7:30 to 8:30 am everyday. If you had the 4th watch you didn't get relieved until 730. Topsiders were complaining that RX dept was leaving during cleaning stations so they made everyone stick around till after happy hour(nevermind they were still 8 sect duty and we were P/S). The last week or so it turned into pretty much you lived on the boat even if you weren't on duty.
DSO:
--- Quote from: Preciousblue1965 on Mar 20, 2008, 12:59 ---Well my last PIA(carrier overhall) Our ship had Happy Hour from 7:30 to 8:30 am everyday. If you had the 4th watch you didn't get relieved until 730. Topsiders were complaining that RX dept was leaving during cleaning stations so they made everyone stick around till after happy hour(nevermind they were still 8 sect duty and we were P/S). The last week or so it turned into pretty much you lived on the boat even if you weren't on duty.
--- End quote ---
I encountered this--Nukes working 12-16 hr shifts, but because of gutless supposed leaders that would not speak up to the XO, they stayed around for another hour to field day with the whining Coners. Just one example of why the Navy Nuclear field loses so many people. I wish I had these leaders for bosses now--I love overtime pay for senseless tasks.
Loffy Muffin:
of course the coners are going to stick it to the nukes at every opportunity. they run the boat. Plus, they just love it when they can get a nuke who still thinks he is "special". A nuke should be able to figure that out.
What was a real hoot, was when they have an E-6 ELT from proto type come on board to take over as the lead ELT, and they stuck him the torpedo room while an E-2 cook loser getting a rack....I think I reminded him of that, oh, about every day.
I made as many friends forward as I could. Radio? Now I know all the messages going in and out (hey, did the fool XO send the dive school message?)...Yeoman...("Hey, they are fixing to write you up, better keep your head down." Plus, your paper work get expedited)...cooks...("here are some steaks/shrimp/lobster for your surf road trip to mexico")....Sonar (hang out in the shack listening to AC/DC or sleeping during field day while the special nukes are in the bilge). Plus the coner chiefs are not complete basket cases like the nuke chiefs. The COB is usually a coner, so hanging out with the coners makes a nuke high the COB's list of favorites...so I used to get choice berthing, best barracks, easy field days...
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