The RAS - Replenishment At Sea
Today's Naval adventure is the Replenishment At Sea, or RAS for short.
The RAS can end up being a dangerous evolution. There are a lot of moving parts during it and everyone from the bridge driving the ship, to the line handlers need to be on point and paying attention.
Today there was a line waiting to receive fuel from the fuel ship. We all assumed our positions and waited for our turn. The Aircraft Carrier was in front of us and another ship was waiting behind us.
As soon as the Carrier broke off, we got ready to come alongside.
One of our Quartermasters is readying the different flags for the replenishment. We fly different flags depending on whats going on. We will be in restricted maneuvering and will maintain our course and speed during the refueling. Also, a red flag is flown for no smoking or open flames.
I usually stood the position as a line handler during the evolution. We would use line to pull the refueling probe over to our ship. When it got near, the line captain would yell, "run with it!" And everything would run pulling the probe hard so it would seat.
During this particular RAS, I was under instruction to learn to be the line captain since my friend that was in the position was transferring soon.
Once the fueling began, the line handlers just hung out. There wasn't much more for us to do.
Each vest color meant a different position. The purple vests were the fuelies. They were engineers that would check the fuel and make sure we were getting the fuel we needed. The white vests were the safety observers.
An engineer checks the quality of the fuel.
When fueling is complete. We tie a bag of fresh cookies from our galley to give to the fueling ship as thanks. Also, ships will stick their ship's stickers on the fuel nozzle as a we were here.
After everything's finished we will do an emergency break away. As we do that, the ship will turn away and increase speed. Also we will play a 'victory' song over the loud speakers.
Thanks for taking your time to stop by and see another one of my Navy adventures. Have an awesome day!
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