Honours to a Captain boarding an RN Warship

[Lumber]

So the ship's name is never used, right?

It is. Whenever the CO comes aboard, the QM will make a pipe on all circuits "<Shio's Name> Aboard." (i.e. "Fredericton Aboard"), and when he leaves replace aboard with ashore. This is so that the XO and HODs all know he is aboard and can beginning forming up the queue of people outside his cabin cabin to brief him on what's broken now.

 

[FSTO]

It’s been a while since I sailed and I don’t recall that being the case. But my memory may be failing.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

It’s been a while since I sailed and I don’t recall that being the case. But my memory may be failing.

It is the lead paint…

 

[Navy_Pete]

By the way, the details are avail in the manual of drill and ceremony, posted below (drill and dress manuals are thankfully avail on the internet).

Chapter 13 Procedures for use on board ship - Canada.ca

My internet is a bit weird, but I think this is a video showing the pipe for the RCN;

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=561261501301120

 

[dimsum]

Trade off; hot meals, showers and the ship carried my stuff for me, and so far the real danger was the ship itself and/or the ocean. Plus, aside from a few ceremonial things, almost no actual drill.

Fixed wing Air Force fleets enter the chat

 

[FSTO]

Fixed wing Air Force fleets enter the chat

You’re not really military

 

[dapaterson]

The Air Force is the next best thing to being in the military.

 

[dimsum]

You’re not really military

You say that like it's a bad thing

 

[daftandbarmy]

You say that like it's a bad thing

 

[stoker dave]

Note the above procedure for 'piping the side' applies when the CO walks onboard (i.e. from the jetty). I think there is a whole other kettle of worms when the CO arrives by boat or helicopter. Or if the CO of another ship arrives by boat or helicopter.

As someone in the engineering department, I had (at best) a casual acquaintance with the requirements for ceremony, deck work and general seamanship. When it was the engineer's turn to be OOD, some COs cut us a bit (a tiny bit) of slack in those areas.

As OOD I once failed to blow the appropriate whistles, wave the right flags or ring the right bells when an admiral made an unannounced trip around the harbour in his barge and passed by the ship. For that sin, I was assigned extra duties. It so happens I was in the engine room dealing with an urgent situation regarding the safety of the ship. I made some noise about someone having misplaced priorities and the extra duties went away.

 

[dimsum]

Note the above procedure for 'piping the side' applies when the CO walks onboard (i.e. from the jetty). I think there is a whole other kettle of worms when the CO arrives by boat or helicopter. Or if the CO of another ship arrives by boat or helicopter.

As someone in the engineering department, I had (at best) a casual acquaintance with the requirements for ceremony, deck work and general seamanship. When it was the engineer's turn to be OOD, some COs cut us a bit (a tiny bit) of slack in those areas.

As OOD I once failed to blow the appropriate whistles, wave the right flags or ring the right bells when an admiral made an unannounced trip around the harbour in his barge and passed by the ship. For that sin, I was assigned extra duties. It so happens I was in the engine room dealing with an urgent situation regarding the safety of the ship. I made some noise about someone having misplaced priorities and the extra duties went away.

When I switched to the light blue, the sqn I was on OJT before course happened to have some RCAF GOFO visiting. In the RCN, they'd be polishing stuff, arranging the side party, etc like what @stoker dave said.

Meanwhile, this guy shows up via Challenger, walks into Ops, chats with the CO, and goes off to do whatever. I don't think most of the sqn even realized he was there, and even if they did, didn't change what tasks they were doing.

 

[Good2Golf]

When I switched to the light blue, the sqn I was on OJT before course happened to have some RCAF GOFO visiting. In the RCN, they'd be polishing stuff, arranging the side party, etc like what @stoker dave said.

Meanwhile, this guy shows up via Challenger, walks into Ops, chats with the CO, and goes off to do whatever. I don't think most of the sqn even realized he was there, and even if they did, didn't change what tasks they were doing.

As it should be, Dimsum.

Unless the GO is the reviewing officer of formally invited dignitary for a specific event/parade/ceremony, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

 

[Halifax Tar]

When I switched to the light blue, the sqn I was on OJT before course happened to have some RCAF GOFO visiting. In the RCN, they'd be polishing stuff, arranging the side party, etc like what @stoker dave said.

Meanwhile, this guy shows up via Challenger, walks into Ops, chats with the CO, and goes off to do whatever. I don't think most of the sqn even realized he was there, and even if they did, didn't change what tasks they were doing.

Hey you take that common sense and shove it. Nelson did it this way and so will we.

Now where is my boatswain's call I need to tell people it's time for lunch.

 

[stoker dave]

I have thought about this some more (sorry for the drift). The way to NOT retain engineers in the Navy is to tell them ringing bells, blowing whistles and waving flags is more important than keeping the ship from sinking or catching fire.

 

[FSTO]

When I switched to the light blue, the sqn I was on OJT before course happened to have some RCAF GOFO visiting. In the RCN, they'd be polishing stuff, arranging the side party, etc like what @stoker dave said.

Meanwhile, this guy shows up via Challenger, walks into Ops, chats with the CO, and goes off to do whatever. I don't think most of the sqn even realized he was there, and even if they did, didn't change what tasks they were doing.

When the ship is doing proper planned maintenance, it won’t look like a bag of shit. And getting a side party together isn’t a big deal either. Some of you make it sound like the world is coming to an end in order to do simple things. As this movement gains strength we then have displays of the shitshow at CRCN’s CoC because some folks think that doing things properly is too “Awkward” FFS.
Yes we are short staff, blah blah. But this is where leadership says, we’re pulling ships out and putting them into deep structural refit and fully staff our remaining ships so that everything is correctly maintained. Yes I’m a dreamer.

 

[FSTO]

I have thought about this some more (sorry for the drift). The way to NOT retain engineers in the Navy is to tell them ringing bells, blowing whistles and waving flags is more important than keeping the ship from sinking or catching fire.

Float and move is your job. NAVCOMMs for flags and boatswains for pipes. Keep you grimies in the holes where you belong!

 

[Navy_Pete]

When the ship is doing proper planned maintenance, it won’t look like a bag of shit. And getting a side party together isn’t a big deal either. Some of you make it sound like the world is coming to an end in order to do simple things. As this movement gains strength we then have displays of the shitshow at CRCN’s CoC because some folks think that doing things properly is too “Awkward” FFS.
Yes we are short staff, blah blah. But this is where leadership says, we’re pulling ships out and putting them into deep structural refit and fully staff our remaining ships so that everything is correctly maintained. Yes I’m a dreamer.

The highlighted bit has been the party line for a while, meanwhile ships are reactivating with half crews. For the MSED that effectively means that after duty watches, courses, time off etc you will be lucky to have a dozen people avail out of the theoretic number that is close to 60. PM completion rates are in low double digit rates, which leads to massive CM.

If random ceremonial takes precedence over dealing with safety issues alongside, maybe the RCN should follow SSOs and not have the MSEO on duty during short work periods? I've yet to meet any other HODs outside MSEOs do anything comparable to filling in as hot work sentries after hours to make sure things got fixed. That's how shorthanded we are.

If we did things 'properly' the ships wouldn't sail without being up to snuff, yet here we are beating the rat shit out of them and wondering why they fall apart. There are so many serious defects that we can't even wrap our head around the collective aggregate risk, and any one of them would simply stop a commercial ship from sailing. Excuse me for having a GAF of zero for ceremonial in that context.

 

[FSTO]

The highlighted bit has been the party line for a while, meanwhile ships are reactivating with half crews. For the MSED that effectively means that after duty watches, courses, time off etc you will be lucky to have a dozen people avail out of the theoretic number that is close to 60. PM completion rates are in low double digit rates, which leads to massive CM.

If random ceremonial takes precedence over dealing with safety issues alongside, maybe the RCN should follow SSOs and not have the MSEO on duty during short work periods? I've yet to meet any other HODs outside MSEOs do anything comparable to filling in as hot work sentries after hours to make sure things got fixed. That's how shorthanded we are.

If we did things 'properly' the ships wouldn't sail without being up to snuff, yet here we are beating the rat shit out of them and wondering why they fall apart. There are so many serious defects that we can't even wrap our head around the collective aggregate risk, and any one of them would simply stop a commercial ship from sailing. Excuse me for having a GAF of zero for ceremonial in that context.

Totally understand. Ready Aye Ready is killing the navy.
I think the worry is that if we say we can’t do a deployment and nobody (the US) notices then the GoC will say, “see? We don’t need 12 Frigates, we can get away with 6!”
And it’ll be 1922 all over again.

 

[dapaterson]

"Far better to let a frigate self divest in the mid Atlantic" is not the power flex the RCN apparently thinks it is.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Totally understand. Ready Aye Ready is killing the navy.
I think the worry is that if we say we can’t do a deployment and nobody (the US) notices then the GoC will say, “see? We don’t need 12 Frigates, we can get away with 6!”
And it’ll be 1922 all over again.

Counterpoint was people used the same argument for only getting Asterix, vice two interim tankers, and that had no impact on getting less than the planned 2 JSSs.

I think regardless of what the Admirality want, the CPFs are going to 'self retire' anyway until we get to a number we can handle. The longer we beat on the current ships and burn people out, the lower the number of CPFs that will leave us with.

As an aside, my favourite SWP ever was when the ship was excused ceremonial. We still did some planned things ahead of time, but aside from colours and sunset there was nothing for the OOD to worry about for the various sail pasts etc. When you are running around trying to figure out man aloft, radhaz, hotwork etc it was one less thing to worry about, and you could just focus on keeping the ship safe.