Damage Control Class-Wet Trainer

A few days after finishing SRF B I started taking a damage control class. This class lasts for almost two weeks. The plan is for me to eventually become one of the Repair Locker Officers on the ship. I was wondering what my next collateral duty would be. I guess I just got my answer. The first week is all about controlling fires, smoke, flooding...etc after either accidents or battle. I just finished that week when I took the exam.

My favorite day was the lab conducted in a wet trainer. I had some training during OCS in a similar environment but it was a little too fast paced for my liking plus I was little sleep deprived at the time. This training was much better. We learned how to make shoring, patch pipe ruptures and stop the ship from flooding. After being shown several demonstrations of how to set up the proper shoring it was time to test our skills under a simulated emergency condition. The training facility built a real life compartment based on US warships and then incorporated important damage control elements to solve.

The class was split into two teams; enlisted vs. Officers. The enlisted team consisted of mostly chiefs with a few petty officers. The Officers were either Ensigns or Lieutenant Junior Grades. There were a number of Supply Officers from several other ships. The enlisted team went first and we were able to watch. They made several mistakes that cost them far too much time. They plugged the smallest holes first before moving onto the largest and hardest ruptures. When they finally got to the biggest problems, the water level was becoming a major issue.

When it was our turn we plugged the biggest ruptures first and then moved onto the smaller ones. I was one of the guys holding a steel plate against the hull keeping it in place against the water pressure flooding the compartment. The plate had to be held in place long enough to brace it with wood shoring. After that I was assigned to watch the shoring, making sure it stayed in place. One of the other groups made the mistake of not placing a sentry on their shoring and the instructors knocked it down. In the meantime the chiefs thought it would be funny to blast me with a hose from up above trying to get me to leave my post. The simulation turned out to be quite a bit of fun even if we were all drenched.