I've looked through the website, and found some good information on going underway, but the last posts appear to be from 2009, and I'm assuming are at least a little outdated.
I'm going to my first boat, a 688, and have been told that I'll be going on an underway very shortly after I arrive. I was wondering if anyone out there had any advice for me as far as packing, the qual process, or life in general on a submarine. I was a staff instructor at prototype, so I've done some advanced quals and had time to talk to some sea returnees about the process. Unfortunately, most everyone I come in contact with at work are from boomers, and I haven't had much interaction with fast attack sailors.
How much room am I going to have on the boat? Should I bring a full seabag? 2 full seabags?
With the recent navadmin change for coveralls, what will my underway uniform be? I'm really hoping it's not just all NWUs.
I appreciate any and all advice, and if anyone has links to forums I haven't found during my search I'd appreciate it.
Are you going on an U/W or a deployment? The big difference is that if you are going on deployment, you'll need to pack basically your entire seabag. The Chiefs will stow your dress uniforms in crevices in the ship such as the sonar dome. You need those for when you return to port.
If it's just a local U/W for training or whatnot, you can skimp on the dress. However, in either case you'll need NWUs (you pull into port even on deployment). Coveralls are changing to more flame resistant coveralls, but not going away. As I'm not currently on a sub I can't tell you how the sub force is managing the transition, but the Navy Times says that the new coveralls are 'organizational clothing' handed out by the ship and you get a velcro nametag to stick on the breast. You'll have to ask your Chief if you should bring the ones you own or if the boat has a couple of sets to give you upon arrival.
As for space, you can expect to be 'hot racking.' The way that typically works is that the COB assigns 3 Sailors to two racks. This gives you about 2/3 of a rack pan worth of space to fit your clothing, uniforms, toiletries, and anything else that you want to bring for recreation... the latter which you would never use since you don't have dolphins and won't for about a year.
If the boat is going to go right on deployment, you're showing up at the perfect time for quals. Lots of bored watchstanders are always willing to give you checkouts and help you get qualified. The best advice that I can give is hit the ground running. That is, make sure you knock your first few checkouts out of the ballpark so that the boat thinks you are competent. If you go to your first checkout not being able to do all the basics that you'd ask a prototype student to do for the system, you are going to have an uphill battle from there. Oh, and keep the SPU sea stories to yourself until you are qualified to stand watch.
You should expect to crank on the mess decks for 60-90 days, but U/W you should still have about 4 hours a day to work on quals and still get 4-6 hours of sleep. Your life will be crank, qual, sleep, or watch qual sleep. Don't expect to do anything else besides that until you are senior-in-rate qualified, which includes dolphins and 3M PQS. If you go dinq then you can also knock sleep out of that formula.
The sub force has supposedly switched to an 8/24 watchstanding schedule. I've heard decent feedback about it, but only a small sample and usually from supervisors who have more lengthy turnovers that they now do less often.
The best person to contact on this sort of stuff is going to be your Chief. Unless you are meeting the boat mid-deployment, he should be able to be contacted either via phone call or email.
