Being confined below deck must get old on a long peacetime deployment.
How much access does off-duty Navy crews have to the outside? Can they stand at the rails and enjoy the fresh air?
Is there a rec area with chairs and lounges? Place to setup a weight bench and volleyball net? Exercise and fitness is important in the military.
This question could apply to any Navy.
I understand sailors may enjoy the occasional game of shuffleboard:
In WW2, they would often play basketball on the carriers in the elevator wells.
Sports is a natural way to keep up morale and keep fit.
Calisthenics targets different muscle grounds. Compared to competitive sports.
Gerald Ford blocking a shot aboard the USS Monterey in 1944.
Years ago in the amphibious navy, when not in flight operations and weather permitting, the Marines would do PT on the flight deck: calisthenics and running while singing dirty songs. There was a weight set in the aft hangar deck that saw some use. But on the whole, sailors working hours while underway didn’t leave much time for exercise, and most weren’t especially inclined anyway. When they put on too much fat and imperiled their careers they’d join our weight loss classes doing 8-count bodybuilders (repetitive pushups and squats) and belly-busters. I cycled the overweight enlisted personnel and a lieutenant who’d played football for Florida State drove the officers.
The Brits had it better organized. They had PT instructor as a formal rating, and he’d bring the sailors topside to perform circuit training on a regular basis.
I was never on a ship in 23 years in the Navy, but the Seabees did calisthenics every morning after quarters while in home port, which included a run. Overseas, we worked hard and that sort of thing wasn’t necessary. There was, of course, a Fat Boy program for those who were overweight. We had one guy who went from 320 down to 180. That may sound excessive, but he was on a course to be discharged, which meant his career was down the tubes.
BTW, there’s a myth that the Soviets has swimming pools on their Typhoon-class subs, but they were only small ducking tanks post-sauna.
No fancy rec area on the weather decks of the Nimitz, but I remember that I used to go up to Vulture’s Row whenever I had some free time. That was a balcony at the highest point in the carrier’s island where ordinary guys could go, and it gave a perfect view of flight operations. There was something awesome about feeling the stiff chilly winter breeze driving the salt spray into my cheeks and then suddenly feeling the warmth of a wash of diesel fumes from the exhaust of an F-14 Tomcat being launched.
Of course, we had proper rec areas within the ship for various activities.
And we stood at the rails and enjoyed the fresh air all of the time! Every sailor has boring photos of water off the fantail…it is really mesmerizing to watch in real life.
That’s a nice memory. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks everybody for replying.
It’s very interesting.
My brother flew A-6s off carriers back in the late 80s/early 90s. He mentioned once that every month or so while underway they’d stop all flight operations and slow the ship for a few hours on a sunny afternoon, and let everyone who wasn’t on-duty go topside and lounge around on the flight deck.
They called it “Steel Beach Day”. The approved uniform was swimsuits, beach towels, and work boots. Turns out dark colored steel decks get kinda hot in the blazing tropical sun, and the greasy roughly textured deck was not friendly to bare feet.
I distinctly recall touring the USS Lexington as a kid while it was still in commission as a training carrier in the Gulf of Mexico out of Pensacola, and seeing moveable basketball hoops/backboards on the hangar deck.
There’s also a basketball hoop and court (half court) on the main deck of the USS Missouri as well. IIRC it was somewhere aft.
This is actually an issue with modern ships designed to be stealthy. Everything that can be behind flat metal panels, is, including the decks that used to be open. So where previously there were multiple places were a sailor could pop out onto the deck, or open a scuttle or porthole for fresh air, now there is often only 1 or 2 and access may be prohibited.
See the pic at the link below for an example of a ship were the only safe place to go outside while at sea is the rear flight deck, assuming it isn’t in use at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEKO_200#/media/File:Spioenkop_F147.jpg
Not entirely responsive, but I remember my uncle (XO on several ships, eventually mustered out as captain) jokingly recalling his “combat” duty in Viet Nam. Basically they lay several miles off the coast and lobbed in shells. He said it was hard to consider it combat when the marines who were in the shit would be ferried out to their ship where they would lie in the sun and drink lemonade for R&R.
(Uncle was quite the kidder, so I cannot vouch for how terribly accurate this story was.)
From an RCN perspective, this depends on the activities in which a warship is engaged. If we were single-ship steaming, for example, to or from an exercise or operational deployment, off-duty personnel could relax on the flight deck (if the weather permitted). My ship, HMCS NIPIGON (now a diving park) was built with anti-submarine mortars situated in a well aft of the flight deck and, by the time I joined, the mortars had long since been removed and replaced with gym equipment.
Relaxation was also dependent on the watch rotation. If we were standing 1-in-3 or 1-in-4, off-watch time during normal 0800 to 1600 we were still required to do supporting admin work. For officers this would be paperwork (eg planning exercise activities such as gun-shoots, personnel management etc) and for the sailors (ratings, enlisted personnel, “lower deckers” etc) this would comprise cleaning activities and system maintenance activities.
Very rare, but conditions permitting – operational and meteorological – we would sometimes surface for a swim call (see the picture I’m using as my avatar), using one of the fairwater planes as a diving board, and if a meal was in progress some people would take their plates topside.
Safety precautions included putting a diver over the side, to check for sharks before swimming was allowed, and having a rifleman on the bridge just in case.
On my last boat there were a couple of exercise machines back in the engine room for off-watch personnel.
We did have a steel beach picnic once when I was stationed on the tender, with civilian clothes and swimsuits authorised for off-watch personnel. At almost any other time (again, ops and weather permitting) people were allowed out on the weather decks during daylight hours.
My brother in law was in the Navy and he said some ships would allow swimming off the ship, but it was at the discretion of the captian (he had a great captain earlier in his stint in the Navy who allowed it, but then he was replaced by one everyone hated, who didn’t)
I need to know more about Navy swimsuits. Not in a lecherous way. But logistics. Are they provided to sailors as part of their gear? Are they only meant for recreation? What style are the suits (Speedo or board shorts?) Do female sailors get suits?
I always kind of assumed sailors would do any swim-related exercises in their regular pants, being that you weren’t actually meant to be in the water unless you’re suited up for a dive or something. It never occurred to me that the Navy issued swim suits.
Now I’m really trying to remember, but apparently “Navy issue swimsuit” is something that was deemed a nonessential memory by my brain, hopefully allowing something more important to be retained.
I was going to say “they didn’t issue swimwear” and that was going to be that.
Then I remembered that we had a swimming test where we were required to swim some distance (e.g. 100 yards) and then tread water for 10 minutes, to simulate escaping a sinking ship.
The thing is, we didn’t wear our dungarees for that (which one might expect as part of emergency training), but we certainly weren’t skinny-dipping. It’s quite possible we wore our regular athletic shorts in the pool. Those were typical 70’s-era running shorts.
I remember getting sick as a dog during that swimming test. There’s a difference being able to swim in the sense of “kid able to play comfortably in the deep end” and “adult able to swim reasonable distances and tread water for a decent amount of time”
I was in the former group, able to not sink, but not very good at moving and treading water. I passed, but was absolutely miserable for the rest of the day.
ETA: I vaguely remember in the recruit training pamphlet we were given before we reported to boot camp that there was some mention of female recruits bringing their own swimsuits, with specific guidelines of course (e.g. neutral color boring 1 piece).
