Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs)

[Colin Parkinson]

That's actually a pretty nice ship, good range and endurance. I would however redesign the back end and eliminate the stern ramp and have a payload area to stage modular payloads such as TRAPS. Probably go with the ice class option.

I keep the stern ramp, way easier recovering in a sea.

 

[Stoker]

You don't like your boat crews do you?

That ship is useless to us without deck space for our modular payloads. 99% of the payloads and capabilities we have to have stern access to the ocean for towed arrays either TRAPS, side scan etc.

 

[KevinB]

That ship is useless to us without deck space for our modular payloads. 99% of the payloads and capabilities we have to have stern access to the ocean for towed arrays either TRAPS, side scan etc.

Hmm - I am curious if there was anyway to make the rampdock modular -

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You could go with something like this, spanning the stern and lining up flush with the helideck. With gear on either side of the stern ramp.

 

[Underway]

You don't like your boat crews do you?

It's their job. Frankly, the launch and recovery of boats are pretty routine, we do it at least once or twice a day for exercises. Launch and recovery in under 5min is fleet standard.

It's a bigger deal when coming alongside in bad weather and you have the upper decks standing there getting rained on in freezing winds for 30min because of "ceremonial traditions".

I keep the stern ramp, way easier recovering in a sea.

Stern launch is a great idea but there are SS restrictions, and then you would have to davit launch anyways. That aft section for the stern launch is valuable real estate where payloads can go. But with a creative design, you could have a payload bay above the stern launch, which would only restrict the stern launch when a payload was in the water and tethered.

 

[Underway]

Hmm - I am curious if there was anyway to make the rampdock modular -

There is a creative solution right there. Perhaps a platform over it when not in use to place payloads.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I do like the stern ramps that go under the main weather deck, does place some design limits on your small craft though. Nothing on a smaller ship is without a cost or tradeoff. One has to decide that the sea state that each type of launch and recovery allows is something you can live with.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I do like the stern ramps that go under the main weather deck, does place some design limits on your small craft though. Nothing on a smaller ship is without a cost or tradeoff. One has to decide that the sea state that each type of launch and recovery allows is something you can live with.

Unless you include an internal dock, of course

 

[Navy_Pete]

There's probably lots of room for a 2 month supply of IMPs.

Ha, this is the same Navy were getting wifi is more critical than meeting basic SOLAS standards, that would be a fun one to present to the operators!

They might start bellowing about keelhauling people or otherwise demoting them.

 

[FJAG]

Ha, this is the same Navy were getting wifi is more critical than meeting basic SOLAS standards, that would be a fun one to present to the operators!

They might start bellowing about keelhauling people or otherwise demoting them.

Do your ships still carry planks? Do they still have yardarms?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Yes, and yes.

The "plank", or gangplank, or gangway, as you wish to call it, is what we use to go from one ship to another in a nest, or from ship to shore.

And we have yardarms on our masts as we still use signal flags for many ceremonial or operational reasons.

 

[OldSolduer]

Do your ships still carry planks? Do they still have yardarms?

A man after my own heart - but I think the stocks and pillories need to be re introduced to society. I like the plank idea.....

 

[OldSolduer]

Yes, and yes.

The "plank", or gangplank, or gangway, as you wish to call it, is what we use to go from one ship to another in a nest, or from ship to shore.

And we have yardarms on our masts as we still use signal flags for many ceremonial or operational reasons.

I think you missed the intent....

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

No, I didn't ... just messing up with my friend FJAG.

 

[OldSolduer]

No, I didn't ... just messing up with my friend FJAG.

Well played sir...

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Ha, this is the same Navy were getting wifi is more critical than meeting basic SOLAS standards, that would be a fun one to present to the operators!

They might start bellowing about keelhauling people or otherwise demoting them.

to be fair the wifi is likely low hanging fruit and has a morale benefit. But yes safety standards are also good and important.

 

[Navy_Pete]

to be fair the wifi is likely low hanging fruit and has a morale benefit. But yes safety standards are also good and important.

For sure, it's a quick win and helps, but is a bit like buying a sweet stereo instead of fixing your brakes when resources are limited. I guess my point was we prioritize sexy capabilities and creature comforts over things like actual operational capabilities (where safety should be part of the baseline).

Crazy to me that we'll put basic peacetime wave the flag type trips above fundamental basics that a fishing boat or cargo ship would meet, especially with the minimal crews and vastly decreased experience levels. Continually operating below the bare minimum is causing a lot of folks to lose sleep trying to keep their ship limping along and adds to the general pile of things hurting retention.

 

[dimsum]

For sure, it's a quick win and helps, but is a bit like buying a sweet stereo instead of fixing your brakes when resources are limited. I guess my point was we prioritize sexy capabilities and creature comforts over things like actual operational capabilities (where safety should be part of the baseline).

Can't it be both? Get the "quick win" out of the way while working on the hard stuff, which will take a lot longer?

 

[Navy_Pete]

Can't it be both? Get the "quick win" out of the way while working on the hard stuff, which will take a lot longer?

There are chokepoints with limited resources. I have a 60 day backlog on some things, but the stupid wifi EC jumped to the top of the pile and people wanted a 7 day turnaround. Which would be fine, if anyone cared why there was a 60 day backlog and wanted to fix that, but once the sacred cow got through it was back to the status quo. Just my $0.02 but quality of life shouldn't take priority over life safety, so if we can find funding and resources so that Bloggins can surf facebook at sea, than we should be able to make sure basic safety systems work before they go to sea. Right now the paradigm is we have to work to show the ship is too unsafe to go anywhere, instead of having to prove it's safe to leave the wall, which is pretty ass backwards. We're working on that on the technical side, but the operational side is really more interested in trending tweets and dog and pony shows.

The only difference between a lot of the USN collisions and fire events and our own is they have a much larger sample size, so their odds are better for that bad initiating event, but basically we're in the same/worse boat when it comes to the actual outcome. The BHR type scenario could easily happen to any of our ships.

Having said all that, the MCDVs are generally in better shape than the CPFs, but can see those getting tied up before the CPFs or AOPs when we hit the wall on the crew shortage side. Waiting for a few CPFs to 'self retire' though, and we're seeing defects that are taking them out of the ops cycle for 6 months - 1 year for repairs already. Just crossing fingers that it happens without folks getting hurt; we got pretty close with ATH and PRE, and in some respects they were in better mechanical shape at 40+ years than the frigates are at 25-30 years (due to the old baseline refits they got for the first 20-25 years of life).

 

[Dana381]

If its as bad as you and others on here say Navy_Pete (And I believe you that it is) then maybe someone needs to get an investigative journalist involved to expose the issues before disaster strikes.

Disasters don't happen because of one event. They are precipitated by a poor safety culture and a series of events. If management isn't listening to technicians concerns about safety then it is a matter of WHEN not IF a disaster happens.

This is true in any industry. Management often thinks technicians develop a whiny culture and slowly transition to not believing their concerns are valid. Often a third party validating those concerns can open their eyes to how bad things have gotten.

I have seen this unfold often in the trucking industry. In trucking it is usually dispatchers or owners ignoring drivers complaints thinking they are being whiny. Then I or another mechanic tells said owner or dispatcher that the truck is a safety nightmare and it isn't going anywhere till repaired. This usually empowers other drivers in the company to then insist their trucks get repaired also.