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The Rolling Stone Online Newsletter

Text Box: Sweeping Down
By Tom Lucas
         The US Navy likes for their ships to be kept clean. All the spaces in use on any ship were supposed to be swept down every day. This included all the engineering spaces, but most of them escaped that daily routine except for main control (starboard engine room). That space got swept every day, then when underway at the end of every watch.
         The engine room exhaust fans located to the rear of the space drew out the hot air generated by heat rising from all the steam equipment down there. Because of the exhaust fans evacuating the air; new air had to be drawn down the ladder shaft in the forward end of the engine room. That air came into the ladder shaft by way of the uptakes located above the engine and fire rooms. The hatch above the ladder into the uptakes from the main deck was just below the fire room stacks. Even though you couldn’t see it, there were smoke particles from those stacks drawn down into the engine rooms by the moving air. These particles collected on the shinny aluminum deck plates in the engine room and dirtied up the place requiring frequent cleaning. Main control was where the engineering officer of the watch was stationed while underway and thus another reason to keep the space clean.
         To sweep down the upper deck in the engine room, it was necessary to shut off the exhaust fan, because of the breeze created by that fan. The sweeping was done as quickly as possible and the fan was then turned back on.
         There was an Electrician’s Mate CPO that transferred aboard the Stone from the sub fleet. I have forgotten his name but the first time he was engineering officer of the watch, I was the messenger. It was my duty at the end of that watch to sweep down the upper level in main control, so I turned off the exhaust fan and begin sweeping.
         It didn’t take long for the heat to begin building up and when I was about a third done the chief yelled, “Turn that fan back on” I yelled back, “Chief you can’t sweep this space with that fan running” and I went back to sweeping. When I was about half done he yelled, “I said turn that #@$%&*!+# fan back on”. I walked over and turned the fan back on, then I walked to where the chief was sitting and handed him the broom. He asks, “What is this for”? I replied, “Show me how to sweep down with the fan running”. If looks could kill, I would have been dead; he jumped up and scurried up the ladder.
         I turned the fan off again and had to sweep the entire upper level all over because the air moved by the fan had re-stirred what I had already swept.
         Walkenshaw MM2 and Callahan MM3 really got a kick out of that but after a few minutes they tried to scare me about getting wrote up for what I had done. I’ll be honest about it; it did worry me for a few days, but I never heard another word about it. I figured Rutledge MMC told him to drop it.
         From then until he was transferred off the Stone, that EMC would leave main control just before time to sweep down.

Tom Lucas
MM3

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