Underwater Propeller Change,
USS Enterprise, CVN-65

The Untold Finish

OK. I set the stage, then gave you the Official version. Remember my point of view in writing these recollections: Even though I had been a Nuclear Mechanical Planner on Sub Tenders- in the unofficial Diving Community Hierarchy, I was lower than a slimy sea slug. Even my peers with 2 less stripes had more diving time than I did, so I drew a lot of the easy work, or mindless work. The Navy knew that this would be a biggie, and brought in EXPERTS in Ships' Husbandry and Naval Engineering - civilian and military. I was there only because I was part of the 8-man diving locker that just happened to be tied up to the same pier. If I had been stationed anywhere else in the Navy, I would never have been chosen to participate.

Having spent 3 years at a nuke sub repair and resupply base in Guam, I was used to being involved with large, unusual ship/submarine repair and Naval Engineering projects. I'll write about them some other day... but I knew enough about the Navy Horsepower being poured into this job to know that the best spot for me was Low Profile. I kept quiet, stood my compressor watches, and got to make a small number of fairly straightforward dives on the Project. I watched everything, learned everything, and spent untold hours talking to EXPERTS way smarter than I'll ever be. The Master Rigger from Long Beach Naval Shipyard stands out as one- that man could tie every rope knot ever created by Man, and he could splice wire rope together faster than you could follow. I learned more from following this old guy around for part of each day than at any other one time in my life.

Our Secret Weapon was named Bruce Laurich. He was the official Diving Supervisor for the job, and just happened to be my boss on the Hector. He was one of those rare, Right Time, Right Place kinda guys with an incredible memory and background. He wasn't even a Master Diver yet, just an E-7 like I was when I got out, but you just KNEW with this guy... he was gonna be a Master Chief /Master Diver, and a few years later, he was. Every Morning, after every dive, and again before shutting down at night, he held a formal Briefing for the entire Dive Team and support personnel. Helped keep our focus during hard, stressful working conditions, and everybody knows, killing a diver ruins your whole week. Everybody knew what every other person had just done and was doing next. He set up a huge blackboard on Dive Station, and at every evolution, the Experts would discuss and detail every step of every operation we did under the surface. Remember: We're working nearly blind with large equipment at incredible working forces, with no escape: The No.1 prop on Enterprise is not only 40' deep, but 60' horizontally under the side of the ship. If you made a mistake, there was no going up: it was a 60' race OUT, THEN a 40' race to the surface. Maybe.

34 days, start to finish. Over 5,000 manhours under the surface. No injuries, other than the occasional smashed finger which is common enough when you can't see a thing. It was all classified at the time, couldn't let the Ruskies know... until the photo linked above came out in the local paper. Despite the obvious, we all got another lecture about how to evade press questions and what we couldn't say. Support personnel flew home, we cleaned up the mess, then got a whole 2 days off. Eventually, every one of us got a Navy Achievement Medal and a cool plaque- not like getting a Combat Medal, but a nice Thank You for a lowly slimy sea slug ;-) All ship's husbandry and repair jobs for every other ship in the Bay had to be put on hold for the entire month we worked under Big E. Engineers can't fix those huge valves inside the ship until a diver goes down and plugs up the big piping hole OUTSIDE the ship. Officers get really nervous when they see water INSIDE the hull.... SO, for the entire summer of '83, we worked our asses off. Due to our success on Enterprise, our 8-man team even did 2 smaller underwater propeller changes on a frigate and a destroyer.

We had just enough people to put 2 divers down in scuba tanks for a 4 hour shift, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. 7 days a week for weeks on end. Summer past, and Fall was almost over. Big E hadn't moved since we finished the job, but everyone was pretty certain she was good to go. She was prepped for her next deployment, and left for routine sea trials to prep all the new sailors and shakedown all the repaired equipment. As we are cleaning up Dive Station one late afternoon, Chief Bruce Laurich comes trotting down to the pier with a message form in his hand. "VERY Unusual vibrations and noises emanating from Enterprise No. 1 propeller. Make all preparations for immediate visual and video inspection." Enterprise wasn't working right, and the big guys upstairs want answers yesterday.

That night, the Big E slipped back into harbor. At first light, we slurped into our 40°F wetsuits still wet from the day before, and dropped back into familiar territory. The Bay mud had been badly disturbed by the passage and mooring of Big E, visibility measured like 1 or 2 inches. BUT, it was just enough to confirm what our fingertips were telling us: That brand new, EXPENSIVE chunk of manganese bronze propeller looked and felt like an automobile windshield that had been explosively spider-webbed by the sun. It was like a Twilight Episode: I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I couldn't understand the forces required to keep that prop in one single piece. I was just certain that the prop would crumble at the next touch.

Classified Word made the same up and down cycle as with the first incident of prop damage, and there was no denying the underwater photos. Big E needed ANOTHER propeller change before she could leave on her next scheduled West Pac Deployment. Amazingly enough, this certified, inspected, stamped brand-new propeller had been heat-treated to the wrong specifications at the contractor factory, and no one knew the difference. Our tax dollars at work, folks..... USS Hector Repair Department got the call again- make all preparations to change the prop... again.

This time, classification lectures were even more stern. This time, the job had to be done quickly and quietly. This time, we had to pull this off on a minimum budget and with minimum personnel. This time, we would earn our Diving Pay. This time around, I would earn the Navy Achievement Medal I got the last time around.

As an official Sea Slug, I had a lot to do with the dirty work of identifying, tagging, cleaning, and packing every single piece of gear used in the first prop replacement. During a job like this, we would make all kinds of special, one-of-a-kind tools. The Master Rigger also made a huge number of special rope and wire slings and lifting straps and such, which I watched him make. Everything was packed into huge crates and shipped to NAVSEA's special storage depot. When the Orders went out, all these crates were simply delivered to our pier and we went to work setting everything back up again. Having just done this job once, we only received a handful of additional divers to help us, and none of the big Experts. We had proven that an underwater jo blike this could be done despite all setbacks... this time, we would have to prove we could do it with a skeleton crew and budget.

The day before Thanksgiving 1983 in San Francisco Bay was cold, blustery, and just plain nasty to be working outdoors... say nothing of working in the water. Actually, after you got used to the 52°F water temp, it was sometimes more pleasant working under than topside. 15 days, start to finish, without a single hitch. I was in the water constantly and was involved in nearly every diving operation. I got to dive with the Commanding Officer of MDSU-1 and we had a blast! In one diving shift, we removed the Boss Nut, installed the Pilgrim Nut, installed the jacking studs into the face of the propeller, installed the huge backing plate, AND torqued down the jacking stud nuts. Also, just as this 2nd propeller change started, I was notified that I had passed my Machinists Mate 1st Class (E-6) examinations taken 6 months earlier, and I got to sew on another stripe. This made an immediate difference in the amount and type of responsibilities I was assigned. All in All, I'd have to say that this job was one of the finest and most challenging Marine Engineering jobs I would ever be associated with.

No certificates, no medals, no brass band this time around.... just a nice note in our personnel files and performance evaluations, which NEVER hurts ;-) The minute we pulled the last cable out of the water and pulled the diving barge out from under the flight deck, Big E fired up her 8 nuclear reactors and departed for another 9 month WestPac deployment.... with 4 good, quiet propellers, and without the press discovering the Big Propeller Mistake. Me? On the last day of the dive job, I was handed new orders and a plane ticket. I packed my dive bag, got on a shuttle bus, and 24 hours later- landed in the Land of the Gods: Naval Ship Repair Facility, Subic Bay, Philippines. But... that's another story <G> WebMaster Bruce