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It was the first day of a typical underway for Sailors aboard the
amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), as the ship
departed Sasebo, Japan and headed for the open sea in preparations
for unit-level training with Afloat Training Group Western Pacific
(ATGWP).
As the ship itself became a floating city with its
own infrastructure and environment, the day was winding down and
most of the crew had already entered that mental state where the
outside world and all of its problems becomes a distant memory.
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Amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) steams in
formation during a photo exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass
Communication Specialist Seaman Mark Patterson II)
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After night fell and as the day crew exchanged duties with the night check,
the “city” was suddenly enveloped in total darkness and
almost deafening silence. There were only the sounds of
various machines, alarmed by the loss of their power source,
and the guiding lights of the battle lanterns navigating
Sailors through the passageways. Even the ship’s voice, the
1MC went silent. The entire crew sprung into action –
general quarters, all lockers manned - our floating home lay
dead in the water.
After the initial rush, most of
the crew manned their stations, ready for any contingency,
but far below decks, engineers, like the immune system of a
giant living organism, tackled the problem at hand.
Engineers are the moving force behind the ship; they keep
the warship afloat and maintain all of the comforts for the
crew from electricity to hot water. One of their most
important jobs is to maintain the fire within the boilers,
which heat up the water and in turn creates steam. The fire
is maintained within certain parameters, in balance between
supplied air and fuel. To achieve that balance, the
engineers utilize an automatic, computerized system that
regulates valves, injecting the required amount of each
element.
That night there was a scheduled test of
the system, called “flexing the boilers” - a high-risk
evolution, but a required test to make sure the system
operates properly. Engineers, working in the forward main
machinery room, were making a boiler load change from 70
percent to full power when the fire went out. The first step
was to cross-connect with the aft plant for support, but
instead both plants went down.
Engineering casualty,
engineering casualty…
“That night, we seem to have run
out of luck, something went wrong during the evolution and
the fire went out,” said Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Renz
Mauleon, from Saint Pablo, Calif., who was on watch the
night BHR’s heart went silent.
“We were literally
dead in the water,” recalled Senior Chief Machinist’s Mate
Angel Garza, from Houston. “The rest of the ship just looked
at it as ‘engineering lost the plant.’ How I see it is that
I had a group of young Engineers who had to endure a perfect
storm, and then fight repeatedly to save the ship.”
There was no easy button, no calling for help or simply
giving up. Without steam, without power, there was no
steering in rough winter waters, and the ship was drifting
toward land, while the engineers received one blow after
another.
It was dark, steam enveloped the engineering
spaces, the ventilation had stopped, and in an already hot
environment, six decks below the hangar bay, the
temperatures were rising. According to Machinist’s Mate 1st
Class Francisco Ceja, from Richmond, Calif., the thermometer
in the machinery room read as high as 160 degrees and
personnel had to utilize self contained breathing
apparatuses (SCBA).
Enduring the darkness, heat and
stress, the engineers’ first solution was to switch to
diesel as a backup. Diesel is used in such times that the
boilers’ steam cannot provide power to the ship. But even
here the team had hit a snag – the forward diesel would not
come online as it was designed.
To add insult to
injury, there was smoke rising in the vicinity of the
diesel-regulating switchboard, a potential class charlie
(electrical) fire. Engineers could not restart the diesels
until they knew the cause of the smoke. And, like the
Murphy’s Law where everything that can go wrong does go
wrong, aft diesel had issues too - the fuel pump failed.
With both diesels unresponsive, the only option left was
to light off manually.
“Because the system and
computers are automatic, doing light off manually is
practically impossible; you have to regulate the fuel and
air, and coordinate a lot of people, adjusting minute
changes to start and keep the fire going,” said Mauleon. “My
Senior Chief said, ‘we are lighting off manually’ and all I
could think of was ‘What?! This is crazy!’ But we had to do
it, we had to get the power back… In two-and-a-half years
that I have been aboard, we have never done this before,
nor, I think, any of the other Sailors.”
Even Senior
Chief Garza, in his 17-year career never had to resort to
manual light off. But he had technical knowledge,
instructions and confidence in his crew to save the ship.
“Everything turned to being ‘old school’ - shuffling
coal into the engines; at least 20 people were on station
for the job that would normally be done automatically,” said
Ceja. “We had to man up every single watch station, everyone
had to take control of something locally and communicate
with each other: ‘give me more fuel,’ ‘give me more air’ or
‘give me more water,’ ‘open up on this or that.’ Everything
that was done electronically had to be done manually –
something that has not been done before on an LHD. In my 12
years, I have never seen it done.”
The ship’s heart
beats once more.
Miraculously, the team was able to
restore the power and supply some vital services to the
ship: lighting, ventilation, some basic “comforts” for the
watchstanders and enough power for basic equipment, but the
plants had to be maintained manually through the night,
while the work continued on restoring to full automatic
operations.
“We had to fight to secure the plant
safely, endure severe heat stress climate and then light off
and restore the ship simply off of will and engineering
experience and knowledge,” explained Garza. “It was hell!
But seeing the guys push through that, and do it safely and
successfully, I don't see it as they failed; I see it as
they won and earned more than they or anyone else realizes.”
Not only were the engineers able to reignite BHR’s
heart, but they maintained ship’s operations for the rest of
the underway, all the while conducting daily and nightly ATG
training evolutions. They excelled in anything and
everything that was thrown at them.
“We started the
float with two inexperienced watch teams for engineering
spaces, 11 people per team, and for some of them it was
their first watch,” said Ceja. “We went from zero-experience
watchstanders, not being able to pass one evolution or
drill, to meeting the numbers required by ATG in two weeks.
Stateside, ships get five to six months to train in order to
certify. We did it in two weeks.”
An engineer’s hard
work is never done. They maintain a schedule that is
physically and mentally tasking. They are awake at any and
every hour of the day and night, walk more miles, and climb
more stairs in one day aboard the ship than an average
person would in a week, and still keep on pushing through.
“Some days are tougher than the others. Unlike ships
stateside, we are always deployed, always operational, with
only short breaks in between,” explained Ceja. “So, I remind
my guys that this ship is a just a big piece of metal
without you [engineers]. You generate electricity, provide
water and propel the ship through the water, give the crew
comforts – without you, none of this is possible.”
BHR engineers have also tackled problems and developed
unorthodox solutions that go beyond the ship’s operations,
benefiting the entire fleet.
Test it hot.
Another one of the engineering tasks is maintaining the
chemistry of the boilers. Certain chemicals are injected
into the boilers to preserve the inside surfaces. Thus, a
daily chemical test is necessary to ensure proper chemical
balance, which prevents deterioration and corrosion inside
the boilers, and prolongs their longevity.
The
chemical problem arose from inconsistencies in the amount of
chemicals present in the samples. The test results indicated
a very low dosage of chemical present, which meant that the
entire 5,100 gallon boiler had to be drained, filled back up
and injected with a fresh batch of chemicals – a
time-consuming (up to 15 hours) and expensive evolution.
Expensive being the key word, considering not only the cost
of the chemicals used but also the shipping costs to
overseas commands.
“Erroneous readings were
happening throughout the fleet, on any boiler-operated ship
stateside and overseas,” explained Garza. “The solution that
my engineers came up with was as simple and as ingenious as
it could possibly be. They started heating the sample water
to the same temperature as the water when the boilers are
operational, and the results came back satisfactory.”
Conducting the tests with the water heated led to solid,
consistent results. As a next step, engineering department’s
personnel contacted the chemical manufacturer asking about
the difference between using heated and cool water for
sample tests. The manufacturer advised heating up the water.
However, none of the books or instructions specified the
fact leading to inconsistent results and, therefore, led to
wasted man-hours and chemicals throughout the fleet.
“With our results and backing from the manufacturer, I
contacted NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command),” said Garza.
“NAVSEA, in turn, ran their own tests and consulted
chemists, confirming what our engineers were doing. Now, the
instruction is being rewritten to reflect the proper testing
techniques. As a result, the BHR team’s problem solving
attitude affected not only this ship, but also any ship in
the fleet that uses this testing system. All of the LHD
ships in the fleet will be changing to the procedure that
was developed here on BHR.”
But the engineering
team’s strive to excellence did not stop there.
Making RBO history.
Every two years, an inspection
team working for NAVSEA visits the ship for inspection,
which includes taking almost 50 percent of the boiler apart,
looking for any problems, checking the chemistry, verifying
oil lab proper operations and testing, and verifying overall
boiler functionality and propulsion systems. The inspection
team provides feedback and solutions or mitigations for any
issues that are found. This is followed by a major TYCOM
(Type Commander) led inspection, which takes place every
five years.
The equipment is evaluated by a point
system or Repair Before Operate (RBO) – a designation for
equipment (boilers) found to be unsafe to operate during the
assessment, as outlined in the Navy instruction
COMNAVSURFORINST 3540.2.
The engineering team put
time and effort into preparing for the inspection and
verifying that every part of the system was up to if not
above the standard. As a result, during the evaluation on
the number one boiler, they received only 7.3 RBOs.
“There has never been an LHD platform that received so few
RBOs in the history of LHD inspections,” said Garza. “It is
normal, on a routine inspection, to receive 20 to 30 RBOs,
and while I am not happy to receive any RBOs, in my 17-year
career I have never seen a ship receive so few. It is a
testament to our hard work and dedication.”
The fact
that the ship is forward deployed; spending more time at sea
than in port, and operating overseas, where manpower and
supply are limited, the team has outdone its stateside
counterparts.
“Stateside, a five-year inspection is
done within 15 months, our team accomplished it in 60 days;
a routine inspection stateside takes five to nine months, we
completed it in 30 days,” explained Garza. “You have to also
consider that we do not have the same access to resources,
finances and availability as ships back in the states, but
we are still able to meet the objective, correct any issues
and surpass our counterparts without resources or manning.”
“I'd like to be able to tell the story that no one hears
about,” said Garza. “You always read about and see pictures
of the flight ops, the bridge ops, well deck ops,
Marines.... But very few know about those who sail below. I
challenge my Sailors to be perfect, because if I don't,
people get hurt. I was proud of how they performed and I
think others should know about it too.”
Forward-deployed:
the cycle begins anew.
Engineering can be a thankless
job, unrecognized by many for it is invisible to even most
of the ship’s own crew, hidden from sight far below decks,
enveloped in the steam and heat of daily operations. Yet,
without engineers, we would still sail by the power of the
wind or row our way through the waters.
Today, after
overcoming the impossible odds, succeeding and setting new
LHD standard in inspections, and making history in fleet’s
instructions, the BHR engineers embody teamwork,
professionalism and integrity, continuing their work
side-by-side from one deployment into another, keeping this
mighty warship always forward, always on its mission.
By U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Diana Quinlan
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2018
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