The pandemic has taken a toll on even those of us who remained untouched by the virus. In a trivial example, for me, it was a haircut. After five months without a haircut, I was feeling very shaggy when the barbershops finally reopened.
The same applies to ships. The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Stout remained at sea continuously for 215 days straight without a port call, in large part to stay isolated from the pandemic. And it showed. The Drive.com described the appearance of the ship looked “like a set from a dystopian naval thriller, streaked in rust, her hull dinged and battered from the hard deployment.”
The ship didn’t call on a single port between early March and her arrival in Rota, Spain on October 3rd. In that period of time, she spent her time escorting ships, including Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD-5) and the Nimitz class aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and USS Nimitz (CVN-68), as well as executing a slew of other tasks in the 2nd, 5th and 6th Fleets’ areas of responsibilities. In that time, Stout executed three dozen consecutive underway replenishment cycles and executed maintenance that is usually done in port, while remaining at sea. The Navy stated the following in a release:
“As COVID-19 made frequent port visits unsafe, Stout competed the first modern Mid-Deployment Voyage Repair (MDVR) period at sea, spending a week executing scheduled maintenance and preservation to maintain mission readiness while deployed. Throughout the deployment, Stout’s technicians executed depot-level repairs on vital engineering and combat systems equipment.”
All these guys deserve a medal.
Well done!
After how many days at sea did they run out of grey paint?
Guess they didn`t want to break out the stages and bosun chairs since there are no camels at sea to get down low. All my boatswains mate brothers will know what a camel is.
Jean-Pierre, with every house seeming painted grey inside now, maybe it`s hard to find. Me, I seen enough Haze Grey to last me a lifetime.
Don`t want it in my house…..In spite of my wife’s harping.
And what`s sad, they`ll ask the short timers to re-up when they get short?
After 215 days of solid underway.
They do deserve a medal and some fleet liberty.
So the ship was resupplied at sea. Yet grey paint isnt a supply?
As Torpedoman Mates are the sub service equivalent to a target’s Boatswains Mates (we wore many hats) I am aware of what camels are! We had a special set of them because of a classified sonar system. It meant that just about 100% of port calls we made we had to anchor out. And because subs were particularly inadept at using the anchor, it meant there had to be a mooring buoy, which in turn limited us to only certain ports. So in a period of 2 years we spent 635 days of them at sea, most of them where it was real cold. Because we had a rubberized hull coating, the paint didn’t look that bad pulling in, but our bill at the base liquor store dripped red that first day back…
I can feel for the crew of the Stout. God bless them all…
I thought I had it hard with 89 consecutive days at sea, off the coast of Viet Nam!!
On the return trip to Quebec, the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Des Groseilliers transited the Northwest Passage after spending more than a year locked in the Arctic ice in 1998 as part of the SHEBA program. Although part of the science crew, I was lucky to be able to stay on the ship for this part of the passage.
Every day, I grabbed a cup of coffee and spent the morning on the bridge. One day the captain was a little miffed when he received a message from headquarters asking if he could paint the ship on the way back since high-level gov’t officials were going to great the ship. The captain emphatically said no. Keep in mind that the Canadian Coast Guard operates with a crew much smaller that US Coast Guard and Navy and is more “merchant marine” like. The next day the captain received another message asking if he would at least paint one side of the ship, i.e. the starboard side facing the dignitaries. Again his answer was no, bear in mind we were in the Arctic in late October!
Hats off the to crew and– it’s nice to know we have some ships that still can do this without the reduction gears exploding, mysterious fractures appearing etc.