I just happened upon this forum and thread, and my first thought was -- holy CRAP, they still allow smoking on submarines?
I served on the 722 from 90-93. The smoking lamp was put out in 91, I think. When I reported in mid-1990 you could smoke everywhere. Then there was a change of command and the old CO (who smoked) was replaced. The new CO was one CDR Kirkland Donald, who some of you may be somewhat familiar with. Then-CDR Donald was my CO from late 90 until some point in 93.
Anyway under Donald first smoking was disallowed everywhere but on the steps behind maneuvering, and then it was banned entirely.
Then all of the smokers dipped. Everyone kept a little bottle in their shirt pockets to spit in. At one point I was the only nuke MM out of 20 that didn't dip.
But eventually dipping was banned by either the ENG or the CO because of people using the ERLL funnels as spittoons. Particularly that big rectangular funnel on the starboard side of the MSW bay that I no longer remember what was for other than being the M-div'ers' urinal. But of course that couldn't really be enforced.
But anyway, having served on a boat during a smoking ban, I disagree with the idea that smoking doesn't affect the atmosphere. I'm not saying the atmosphere underway rivals Glacier National Park even without smoking, but cigarette smoke does clearly make it worse. Before the smoking ban, the ventilation system filters would be black each month (or however often the PMS cycle was, I think E-division replaced them monthly). After the ban, they were so clean they didn't even need replacing. My understanding was that electrical maintenance on the motor-generators was also considerably cleaner after the smoking ban.
Also, right after the ban the mess cook chief would bribe the ERLL's with food to stand lookout for him while he smoked in that alley behind the port R114. But once one person's cigarette smoke wafted into the ventilation system everyone back aft knew someone was smoking, and he had to quit for fear of getting caught. Plus it wasn't exactly free of suspicion for the MSC to be back aft.... though we did store coffee and flour in PLO bay so he had a pretext sometimes.
So anyway, that's what I recall about being on a boat with no smoking almost two decades ago.
Man, I haven't thought about this crap in a decade or more. Ahhhh, memories....
