Photo By Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Young | Damage Controlman Fireman Ashley Johnson and Damage Controlman Fireman Eric Pfennig...... read more read more
Subscribe
By Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Matthew Young, USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Public Affairs
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Firefighting capabilities are crucial aboard a ship. In the case of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), getting firefighting capabilities back up and running during a refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) was a top priority.
Sailors in Lincoln’s Damage Control (DC) division finished the overhaul of the ship’s fire main system five weeks ahead of schedule by combining efforts with Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) workers and contractors of the Carrier Engineering Maintenance Assistance Team (CEMAT), the first fire main collaboration during an RCOH.
“The fire main is our hub of getting water throughout the ship. That’s how we get all of our water for firefighting, and air conditioning backup, which is the bulk of what we have aboard the ship,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Gregory Collins, Lincoln’s assistant fire chief. “What we did was split the fire main in half: port and starboard side. We took down the port side, left the starboard side up. We replaced the valves in the port side then air tested those valves and then restored the port side. Then we did the same to the starboard.”
The lengthy and labor-intensive project required a lot of coordination and collaboration between the three teams.
“The hardest part was making something from nothing,” said Senior Chief Damage Controlman Rebecca Hunt, DC division leading chief petty officer. “The fact that there was no previous process in place because no other ship had ever done it was tough, so we had to create a process and then verify it, look at the diagrams and make sure that it made sense down to the most junior level.”
Sailors replaced all 6-inch valves, CEMAT replaced all 8- and 10-inch valves and NNS replaced all 12-inch valves. Together they repaired or replaced more than 600 valves.
Chief Damage Controlman Joshua Eccles said that junior Sailors, not the senior leadership, provided the backbone for the work to get done early and, more importantly, correctly.
“If not for our junior Sailors, this would never have gotten done,” said Eccles. “They provided the support, they made it happen, and I couldn’t be more proud to call them shipmates.”
Lincoln is currently undergoing RCOH at NNS, a division of Hunting Ingalls Industries.
Lincoln is the fifth ship of the Nimitz-class to undergo a RCOH, a major life-cycle milestone. Once RCOH is complete, Lincoln will be one of the most modern and technologically-advanced Nimitz-class aircraft carriers in the fleet and will continue to be a vital part of our national defense.
| Date Taken: | 05.22.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 05.22.2014 20:43 |
| Story ID: | 130865 |
| Location: | NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 122 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Lincoln brings fire mains online ahead of schedule, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
