At some point during your career you will be aboard a ship which is scheduled for a naval shipyard overhaul.
During yard period, your ship will be torn apart, machinery removed and systems disrupted. Oftentimes, you will be some distance from your home port; you will not get to see your family very often. You will complain about the lack of co-operation from the shipyard on certain jobs or the unnecessary delays on others. There may be many factors, in short, to make the overhaul frustrating.
But have you considered the shipyard’s attitude toward your overhaul? Your overhaul is accepted by the shipyard as a contract to accomplish certain specific jobs and nothing else. It is far from amusing for the yard to have a ship arrive, expecting everything aboard to be overhauled, repaired, and then chrome-plated.
A ship’s crew takes one view of the overhaul, the shipyard takes another. There is yet a third point of view: the force commander’s. Operational commitments are extremely heavy. In general, when a ship is being overhauled, she is lost to the Fleet not only for the assigned period of the overhaul but also for brief periods before and after the overhaul. It is necessary to have the ship in port for brief periods before the overhaul starts, allowing time for pre-overhaul inspections, conferences, and pre-overhaul repairs. After the ship completes her overhaul, time must be allowed for refresher training and crew familiarization with new or modified equipment. In order to meet the heavy operating demands, type commanders attempt to limit the period of the overhaul to that minimum time required to accomplish the authorized work.
Let us consider the overhaul in detail to try to discover how your ship can obtain the best work the shipyard has to give. When the yard has been designated and length of the overhaul decided on, the ship’s personnel must begin preparing themselves and their work requests properly. The various types of work accomplished on naval ships during yard period and the different types of shipyard availabilities, are explained in the “Repairs and Alterations to Ships” section, Article 2026 of U. S. Naval Regulations 1948, reproduced on the following page.
Often, the arrival of the Bureau of Weapons 150-day letter and the Bureau of Ships 120-day letter will trigger a momentary spurt of yard-work activity on board ship. The BuShips letter will list the ship’s alterations (ShipAlts) to be accomplished during the overhaul. ShipAlt research at this point will pay big dividends. Study your ShipAlts list to determine if other ShipAlts not listed in the BuShips letter should be included. Determine whether any ShipAlt is only partially complete or for some reason cannot be accomplished on your ship. A thorough review of both the 150-day ordnance alteration (OrdAlt) letter and the 120-day ShipAlt letter by you before these letters are answered is in the best interests of both the yard and your ship.
While aboard ship, busy with operations, 120 days may seem like the distant future to you. Do not adopt the attitude, however, that there is plenty of time to get ready for the overhaul. Keep in mind that lead time is required by the yard to generate applicable plans, procure equipment, and prepare job orders. The OrdAlt and ShipAlt letters from the ship, the controlling bureaus, and the yard must be reviewed, appraised, and reconciled. Prompt replies from your ship, containing accurate, up-to-date information, are extremely important to the overhauling yard.
Money is also an extremely important consideration in any availability. Type commanders are assigned money each year to fund yard work performed on ships assigned to them. Note that the applicable bureau pays for OrdAlts and ShipAlts, while the type commander pays for repairs. Repair bills are generally high, and short cuts and economy measures are often required to make the available money pay for all the ship repairs needed in any fiscal year. Often tenders, repair bases, and the ship’s force are asked to do jobs which would ordinarily be done at the yard. Even while in the yard, ship’s force is called upon to share jobs—split-responsibility jobs—with the yard.
The best way for any ship to economize and still get a good, complete overhaul is to prepare thoroughly for the yard period and to participate enthusiastically in the overhaul.
Preparations for all types of availability should be in progress continually on board ship. Work books and machinery history cards should be kept up to date with pertinent, accurate information. A record of repeated equipment failures is very important. Accurate records of part numbers, blueprint numbers, and federal stock numbers, maintained on the machinery history cards, will avoid many wasted yard planner’s man-hours.
Often, stock numbers listed for specific parts are in error; if your machinery history records show this to be true, point out the errors on work requests so that yard or repair base personnel do not order the wrong parts. Remember, be clear in your descriptive write-up on the work request. You have been living with your ship’s equipment and are familiar with the problems you have had. The division, squadron, and force personnel who review your work requests are not familiar with your difficulties. If you are not explicit, you may find your work request denied because of a misunderstanding and once a work request is cancelled, it is often difficult to have it reconsidered. Remember also that a thorough brief by you will aid the shipyard in repairing your equipment, and will lessen the chances of having a piece of gear removed from the ship, overhauled, and returned still malfunctioning.
Check your shipyard job orders carefully when you receive them. See if the details you have mentioned in your work requests are included in the yard instructions. Once your work requests are made up, assign priority numbers to them, carefully considering which items require first attention. You may find that the squadron or force personnel will eliminate the lower priority work owing to limited funds.
Once the ShipAlt and OrdAlt letters arc answered and the work requests properly prepared, your ship’s work lists will be reviewed. At the squadron level, recommendations are entered on the work requests before they are forwarded to the force commander and the yard. The yard reviews the letters, your answers to them, and your work requests. Inspections are made of the ship by yard personnel and cost estimates are prepared for each work request.
At this point, a pre-arrival or arrival conference will be held. A hint: be sure to do your homework for the conference; thoroughly review your OrdAlts, ShipAlts, and work requests. Be aware of any changes which might have occurred in the status of your equipment. Be able to defend all your work requests with facts.
Responsibilities are assigned at these conferences. Often, the force commander’s representative assigns a large workload to the ship’s force. Remember that during yard periods, your crew also will be busy with fire watches, security watches, and schooling, and that some men will have been transferred. It is not unusual for division or squadron commanders to use crews from ships undergoing overhaul in manpower pools. Be realistic when work is assigned to ship’s force; do not let pride keep you from honestly admitting that your ship’s force cannot handle a particular job. Before deciding how much yard work your personnel will be able to handle, ask the advice of officers whose ships have just returned from a yard or whose ships are currently in a yard.
With the conference over, prepare yourself and your men for the shipyard and for your ship’s dealings with shipyard personnel. Be quick to stop any harmful dissertations about those “lazy, thieving yard birds who do nothing but bum from you.” Remind any man holding such an opinion that the ship, her systems, machinery, wiring, and piping, were all assembled by these same “yard birds.” While you are in the yard, look at the ships that are torn apart, the new ships being built, and still other ships being put back together. All this is being done by yard personnel— “yard birds,” if you will—who are excellent mechanics, technicians, designers, and electricians, men who can tear your ship apart, repair and modernize her, and send you out to sea again. So treat these fellows with respect and courtesy, and they will respond with more of the same to you. A really successful overhaul depends on a mutual respect between the ship’s force and the yard personnel. Work with them, instead of watching them work, and you will attain excellent results.
Upon arriving in the shipyard, you will receive a stack of job orders. Review the jobs, see if they are complete. As the overhaul progresses, continue to review your job orders carefully and compare them with the work booklet to ensure that none are left out.
Work with your assigned ship’s superintendent. Seek his advice whenever you are in doubt about any of the yard procedures. If you are displeased with the way something is being done, ask him about it. You cannot expect to come into the yard with a “wake me when it’s over” attitude. Even an outstanding ship’s superintendent cannot do everything: he needs your help if he is to see your ship through a successful overhaul. If you find fault with the ship’s superintendent, discuss the matter with the appropriate assistant repair superintendent.
Often ship’s force personnel spend many hours creating progress charts and laboriously trying to maintain them. Such work is not necessary. The shipyard makes up and distributes detailed schedules. Use these guides to stay abreast of your ship’s overhaul. Read the shipyard schedules and investigate when a key event is lagging. With the wealth of information available through your ship’s superintendent, there is no need to try to maintain your own progress records. The computer programs used by the yard generate many weekly or biweekly reports showing, in list form, those jobs which should have been started or completed. Consult these lists to stay abreast of developments.
Before shipyard work begins, strip the ship of items which can be removed and stored. Valve wheels, clocks, mirrors, shower heads, movable lockers, and gauges are only a few of the items which should be removed for safekeeping. “Strip Ship” items depend upon the size of your ship and the spaces which will be worked in. If you are in doubt about what to remove, ask your ship’s superintendent. At the end of the overhaul these items will not have been lost or damaged, and can be reinstalled. If you have equipment on board which is not to be removed during the overhaul, make sure that you turn it over or light it off periodically during the overhaul.
The block diagram at the top of this page shows the chain of command as it exists in naval shipyards. In almost all cases, your primary contacts, besides the ship’s superintendent, will be the leadingmen of the respective shops. Tell them your problems; work closely with them; and have your people work closely with their men. The ship’s superintendent must work closely with the leading- men, the ship’s officers, and the ship’s chiefs during the overhaul in order to keep work moving on schedule.
Some of your job orders will be endorsed “open and inspect,” directing the yard personnel to open a particular piece of equipment, to inspect it, and then to recommend a course of action. Supervise the “open and inspect” work to see for yourself what shape your ship’s gear and systems are in; insure that all of the proper corrective action is taken by the shipyard.
Have work started on the jobs for which the ship’s force is responsible in time for completion prior to the end of the yard period. Do not hold up the yard because your equipment is not ready on time. If you are having difficulties getting material, or need technical assistance, do not hesitate to ask the yard for aid.
Perhaps the most troublesome jobs encountered are the split-responsibility jobs, in which the shipyard is paid only to do a certain portion of the work. Study the routings for these jobs with care. If you are unable to accomplish your portion of the work, say so in the form of a supplemental work request through the BuShips type desk officer to your type commander.
Upon your ship’s arrival, the shipyard, as a matter of routine, will make system inspections. Review the inspection reports to determine if particular items of work warrant supplemental work requests to the type commander. Early in the availability, the additional work you may feel should be accomplished should be requested. Do not wait until the availability is half over to request additional work, for the shipyard requires time to generate plans from which to work, time to order the material, time to write job orders, and time to accomplish the work.
While in the yard, have the yard’s inspection division aid you in checking on the quality of the shipyard work. The men assigned to this division are highly experienced. They know the regulations and specifications regarding their specialties, and they are employed to insure that work done on your ship is correct. When inspecting machinery and checking systems or ship’s structure, you should have a shipyard inspector with you to aid and advise you on these matters.
Check on equipment while it is being worked on by the yard. Make frequent inspections of the ship and the shops. Have your men available for calls to check machinery or to advise yard personnel about work.
Insist to your ship’s superintendent that yard personnel keep the ship clean, and have your people work with the yard personnel on cleanliness. Have your men conduct a thorough cleanup at least once a day, but guard against over-enthusiastic cleanups during which valuable pieces of gear or spare parts may be discarded. A co-ordinated shipyard and ship effort to keep the ship clean is imperative during any overhaul. Keep agitating for a clean ship; you will be rewarded by having less damage to new and open equipment and reduced danger in case of fire.
“Big dealing,” work, or “cumshawing,” is a phase of yard overhauls which often causes difficulties. The yard personnel assigned to your ship are being paid for all the time they are on board. Whenever you “big deal” a job something must suffer, generally another job on your ship. You may feel that you have gotten something for nothing, but your type commander generally pays for all work done. The estimates that shipyards use on a particular job are based on statistics generated by previous overhauls. As your availability goes on and your work nears completion, there may be some money left over. This money can be used to pay for important work on the ship; the more “cumshawing” you do, the less money will be left over.
During most overhauls, the ship’s force must inspect equipment, check systems, and follow the yard work carefully. Get to know your men, and check on their reports to you. Inaccurate or incomplete reports may be made by ship or yard personnel. Check out reports yourself before you give them to your executive or commanding officer to have an issue made of them. In any case of dissatisfaction, discuss the matter with your ship’s superintendent or the appropriate assistant repair superintendent. Attempt to resolve all your problems at as low a level as possible.
Guard against the following illegal practices during your yard period. If a particular piece of equipment has not been authorized for overhaul, some “unknown” person can “accidentally” smash it. The cry “it worked fine when we came into the yard” is not a new one. Most of the tricks you can think of “to get the yard to do it” have already been attempted many times. Remember also that the naval shipyard’s mission is to serve the Fleet and to get your ship back to sea as soon as possible. To serve the Fleet takes money, and for every job you “beat the yard out of’ you are in effect running up the bill. The result is that repair bases, tenders, and ship’s force are having to do more work because there isn’t enough money available for the yards to do it.
Think of the overhaul as taking place in three phases: rip-out, repair and overhaul, and reinstall and checkout. Delays in either of the first two phases mean delays in the third phase. Follow your shipyard schedules carefully; keep pushing firmly but courteously to keep the ship on schedule. As the equipment begins coming back to the ship at the beginning of the third phase, have your people observe and advise the shipyard workers. Many a unit has been installed incorrectly, because the shipyard worker “just wasn’t sure of how it went.” If your key personnel are with the worker, they can tell him how the unit should be installed. Try to get your systems back together and in operating condition as soon as possible. Once a system is complete and tested, do not secure it until you have to run it on trials. Keep it running, test it frequently, and try to simulate operating conditions as closely as possible. As you repeatedly run and test the system, defects will come to light, and the shipyard can repair the system before the trials.
As the overhaul approaches completion and trial dates get closer, check the job orders again. As a job is completed, sign it off. The remaining job orders will indicate the amount of work still to be done. Refer to type commander instructions for trials guidance. Prepare complete trial schedules, and practice them ahead of time. The ship theoretically should have completed a system by system trial before the ship’s trial is attempted. Dock trials allow for the final checkout of the ship alongside the pier.
During the dock trials, make up detailed discrepancy cards. Be explicit on these cards, since they are, in effect, another work list to be accomplished. Either ship’s force or the shipyard will be responsible for correcting all of the items on the discrepancy lists but, once again, you have to make sure they are corrected properly before sea trials.
Do not be badgered into conducting a dock trial or a sea trial prematurely. Ensure that your personnel and your ship are ready. Do not attempt to go on sea trials after a liberty weekend. Your crew must be rested. Make sure that all personnel have had a number of familiarization drills at their respective stations. Five to six months does not seem like a long time, but it is surprising how much can be forgotten during your yard period. Most ships have a number of personnel changes while in the yard, and the new men who have reported to the ship during the overhaul should become familiar with new ship’s equipment.
While on sea trials, again prepare detailed discrepancy cards, and ensure that corrective action is subsequently taken.
After the completion of a successful sea trial, you should have very few job orders left to sign off. At this point, you should review once again the remaining job orders and discrepancy cards. Make your ship’s superintendent and the appropriate assistant repair superintendent aware of any items still requiring attention. If you are unable to resolve a problem at this level, seek the force commander’s or appropriate bureau’s advice. Do not abuse your rights, however.
Once the overhaul is completed and you are happily at sea again, do not forget the naval shipyard. Keep checking your equipment and systems. Maintain accurate work books and machinery histories. Keep your alteration records up to date. Inform the yard of faulty workmanship, poor installation procedures, and operating difficulties encountered. Submit your reports in the form of constructive criticisms, so that corrections can be made to the yard’s procedures.
If it seems to you at this point that a navy yard overhaul involves a great amount of work, you are right; it does. Remember, the success or failure of the navy yard overhaul depends greatly on the ship’s force; enthusiastic ship’s force participation always leads to a good overhaul.