RL Question: How to dock a sub

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by LoBlo

RL, but somewhat random question. I'm curious how subs are tied to the pier of their dock. Is it just a matter of tieing one rope to the bow and one rope to the aft and making ithem snug? Does the sub bump up against the dock much and if so, does it damage the surface coating any? Also, how often is the sub treated for barnacles?

Tied up with lots of lines. As someone said we used spacers, called 'camels' to stand the boat off from the pier or from other vessels tied between us and the pier. The ships divers monitor the barnacles situation. It has to be REALLY bad before they will haul a boat out of the water unscheduled to do anything about it. It is a HUGE evolution with a tremendous amount of setup to pull a nuke boat out of the the water. Normally it is handled when the boat is in a shipyard for pre-scheduled work.

Originally Posted by LoBlo

Also, do subs ever push off on their own (with maneuvering prop) or do they always have to use a tug? When the sub is in the channel away from the tugs and on its own power, is it at the Captain's discretion to maneuver as fast as he feels is safe, or are their restrictions to what speed he's allowed by Navy rules.

lb

I CO will only come into port without a tug if the weather is VERY calm and he is VERY confident of the shoreside line handlers. Again, as someone stated, you only have the screw and this little retractable electric motor that we call (no I am not kidding) "The Outboard" It can be used to manuever the stern around a bit but you are VERY limited in what you can do. It takes a VERY good skipper to get underway or pull in without any tugs.

That being said, I have done each ONCE and I think the OOD about had a stroke each time. Once was pulling into Lisbon Portugal and from what was said the weather was absolutely PERFECT. The wind and the current actually pushed us up to the pier gently. Even under these conditions the stress wa evident.

Leaving port was a totally different matter. In some BADDDDDD weather we LOST the after camel while outboard another submarine at about 11pm on a Friday. It was not a good situation and it created an abrupt unscheduled underway were we had not choice but to leave without a tug.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead Nuke

Tied up with lots of lines. As someone said we used spacers, called 'camels' to stand the boat off from the pier or from other vessels tied between us and the pier. The ships divers monitor the barnacles situation. It has to be REALLY bad before they will haul a boat out of the water unscheduled to do anything about it. It is a HUGE evolution with a tremendous amount of setup to pull a nuke boat out of the the water. Normally it is handled when the boat is in a shipyard for pre-scheduled work.

I CO will only come into port without a tug if the weather is VERY calm and he is VERY confident of the shoreside line handlers. Again, as someone stated, you only have the screw and this little retractable electric motor that we call (no I am not kidding) "The Outboard" It can be used to manuever the stern around a bit but you are VERY limited in what you can do. It takes a VERY good skipper to get underway or pull in without any tugs.

That being said, I have done each ONCE and I think the OOD about had a stroke each time. Once was pulling into Lisbon Portugal and from what was said the weather was absolutely PERFECT. The wind and the current actually pushed us up to the pier gently. Even under these conditions the stress wa evident.

Leaving port was a totally different matter. In some BADDDDDD weather we LOST the after camel while outboard another submarine at about 11pm on a Friday. It was not a good situation and it created an abrupt unscheduled underway were we had not choice but to leave without a tug.

Most people don't realize how hard those emergency underway in foul weather events can be. I recall doing one and as is normal in such events there was not sufficient time to bring up the plant so we only had outboard and EPM (emergency propulsion motor) on the diesel. You can't get much thrust out of the EPM so you had better take into account drift. Must be nice for those skimmers with gas turbines to just crank it up and take off.:hmm:

[Bubblehead Nuke]

Originally Posted by Rip

Most people don't realize how hard those emergency underway in foul weather events can be. I recall doing one and as is normal in such events there was not sufficient time to bring up the plant so we only had outboard and EPM (emergency propulsion motor) on the diesel. You can't get much thrust out of the EPM so you had better take into account drift. Must be nice for those skimmers with gas turbines to just crank it up and take off.:hmm:

We are in the incident reports. Total startup time was amazingly short considering how long it normally takes. Got underway with the port main engine and the port SSTG on-line and the plant critical but not quite up to NOT/NOP. If I remember correctly the diesel had not been loaded long when the SSTG went on-line. The NAV (he was the CDO that night) said we gotta go and go NOW and that was what we did.

Once we got things stable we brought the other side up by the book. We did not break anything, we did not break any rules, but boy did we flex and tweak them.

Was it fun? At the time? No. Afterwards, looking back.. oh HELL YA. I can still remember vividly some of the shouted communications, the concerns, and the 'go for it, get it done' attitude we had.

Before any of you start thinking that this was a dangerous and risky thing to do, please undertand that:

a) These are actual procedures, their are rules and guidlines that are in print, trained upon, and followed when doing these sorts of things.

b) These plants are engineered to DO these sort of things. They are REALLY hard to break unless you do something stupid.