a U.S. civil service employee or a local employee, as are
their lower-level supervisors. These shop masters are
assistant repair superintendents who supervise all work
done in their specialties whether in their shops or on the
ships. (NOTE: Some fleet activities have a ship repair
department, or SRD, rather than a repair division.)
The assistant superintendent who is responsible for
hull work is also responsible for drydocking. The actual
drydocking is supervised by a docking officer who is
usually an ED officer with special docking
qualifications. Navy Regulations and the Naval Ships’
Technical Manual require that the docking officer take
responsibility for the ship when it starts to cross the sill
of the drydock, and give responsibility back to the ship’s
CO when the ship clears the sill on the drydock on its
way out. We will discuss docking in more detail later in
the chapter.
Shop Division
This division maintains and supports the equipment
and structures in the shops. It is headed by a shop
superintendent, usually a LCDR, who may be an ED
officer or line officer. The division also handles
production methods, safety, stores, and housekeeping.
In a naval shipyard, this division would also be
responsible for industrial supervision, but the repair
division handles it in an SRF. The shop superintendent
usually has a junior officer as assistant shop
superintendent and safety officer.
Ship Superintendent
The repair superintendent also supervises a group
of officers called ship superintendents. They are junior
ED officers or line officers whose duties parallel those
of the ship superintendents in IMAs, SIMAs, and naval
shipyards. When a ship is assigned an availability, the
repair superintendent assigns a ship superintendent for
that ship. The ship superintendent gets copies of all work
requests that are sent to the ship and the shops to help
them keep track of all work in progress on the assigned
ship. The ship superintendent is liaison between the ship
and the repair superintendent. He directs all work on the
ship and coordinates all work done in the shops. He
coordinates all tests, changes in work requests, ordering
of material, and sign-offs of work orders for his assigned
ship.
NAVAL SHIPYARDS
Naval shipyards are under the control of the Naval
Sea Systems Command (NAVSEASYSCOM). Each
ship in the active fleet is assigned a home yard and a
planning yard. The home yard is the naval shipyard at
which a ship usually gets its regular overhaul. CNO
assigns the home yard based upon the geographic
assignment of the ship and NAVSEASYSCOM
recommendations.
NAVSEASYSCOM assigns the planning yard One
naval shipyard or other activity is assigned as a planning
yard for each ship type. The planning yard provides
design services and keeps up-to-date tiles of working
drawings and selected records and data. The planning
yard usually does the design work for the class of ship
assigned and provides the required drawings to each of
the other shipyards working on ships of the class. The
planning yard also may handle central procurement of
material.
Shipyard management is responsible for all phases
of naval shipyard activity. The line of authority and
control passes from the shipyard commander through
the heads of departments, divisions, and offices to the
administrative units. See the U.S. Navy Regulations and
Navy Department directives for additional information
on naval shipyard management and organization. Figure
9-2 shows the organization of a typical U.S. naval
shipyard.
A ship’s engineer officer will be most concerned
with the planning and production departments. The
planning department prepares plans and orders material,
and the production department is made up of the shops
that do the actual repair work on the ship. We’ll discuss
both in the next paragraphs.
PLANNING DEPARTMENT
Before a ship begins an overhaul, the shipyard’s
planning department usually receives a copy of the
ship’s worklist and the amount of funding, both
approved by the TYCOM. The planning department
uses that information to develop preliminary estimates
of the work that can be done with the available funds. It
sends them to the production department where the
production control branch of the repair division uses the
estimates to schedule the workload. Next, the planning
department prepares requisitions for material requiring
long lead time, and issues a preliminary work booklet
for repairs. Figure 9-3 shows the organization of a
typical planning department.
When a ship is to be overhauled, the shipyard tries
to send representatives to inspect the ship before it
reaches the shipyard. They check plans against actual
conditions and make any adjustments before the ship
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