USS Scott: Moon Engineering

 

 

Moon Engineering 

USS Scott DDG-995

Feb 1991-Jan 1992

 

I mentioned before when I reported on board Scott that she was located at Moon Engineering in Portsmouth. General Dynamics NASSCO is located there now. The old lady was a hive of activity with the yard workers all over her doing repairs and improvements.

To me, it was a good time to report onboard. It gave me time to learn the ship and get settled without the underway time. So, from Feb 21, 1991, we were tied up and unable to go anywhere until early April. There was no fuel oil, no lube oil, no boilers, no missiles, and no 5” rounds.

Ships need those periods to be taken care of. After all, they are very complex machines. Initially, I was assigned to MER 1. But, that changed a couple of months later to the oil lab. Lucky for me, I had a couple guys from A-school also on board, so I knew a couple people. GSM3 Escobedo was in MER 2 and GSMFN Wallace was in MER 1 with me. Wallace and I got to do some of the housekeeping jobs.

One day Wallace and I had to remove the old fuel control valves from MER 1 and AUX 1. Those freaking things were as heavy as hell. We also were assigned to paint and clean. One day I went through the entire engine room and replaced light bulbs. There were like 50 underneath the engines alone.

Things were crazy with the yard guys onboard, but the old lady did need the sprucing up. When the welders were in the engine rooms, we had to stand fire watch for them. And it never failed anytime you would walk by; they would strike an arc every time you glanced over at what they were doing. I spent more than one day as a fire watch, and my eyes certainly did not enjoy those at all.

When the boilers were pulled, there was three coffer damns near the openings. One early morning while I was on sounding and security, there was more water in the bilge of MER2 than usual. It seemed when the mooring lines were tightened up, Scott had rolled slightly as the tide came in. The hole for the boiler cut out was below the waterline as we were taking water. We fired off the eductor and pumped out the water, so all was good.

Slowly we began to get the old lady ready to head back to sea. Barges with fuel oil were brought alongside, and I got the help to sit and watch the discharges. That was the beginning of my journey to the oil lab. When we finally fired off the engines for the first time, I did the fast cruise before heading out to sea. That was pretty exciting for a new engineer.

Some of those final days before our first time out were rather long. Prepping for the sea was a totally new experience for me. We thought we had MER 1 ready, so the Chief came down to check; he trashed the place. I forget his name, but he had full sleeve tattoos. I think he was a redhead too. Knew his shit, but was a let you know when you messed up.

Now, I will admit, I was worried about that first time out. I didn’t want to get sick and be a total FNG. But it didn’t happen. I felt a little uneasy, but the guys in MER1 kept me busy, and that went away. I had the thrill of cleaning a set of oil filters regularly.

We stopped and dumped trash for a while and then went along with the sea trails. I heard many of the other new guys were puking like crazy, so I felt better that I didn’t. I think we pulled back into Moon after that little run for some minor stuff. Soon, we made our way back to the destroyer piers and the fun of getting the old girl loaded out with weapons and the rest of the things we needed.