Molly "kills" Oscar

This morning, we had a man overboard drill. However, unlike the last one where we just mustered the non-SWO JOs to practice doing a MOB maneuver and we used a grapple to fling out and pick up Oscar (the big floating man that we use for drills… we obviously would NOT use a grapple on a real person…) this drill involved the whole ship. It allowed the whole ship to muster to try and find who went overboard (the training team picks one person and says “don’t go to your muster point), it allowed the SAR (search & rescue) swimmers to get practice retrieving a person, and it allowed the medical team to practice treating the wounds (before they threw Oscar in, they tied plastic “casualties” all over him… wounds to the leg, intestines spilling out, etc). And, unlike last time where they let the real conning officer just tell every JO what to say to maneuver the ship; this time it was just me as the conning officer, with all of the non-SWO qualed JOs, the CO and the XO all on the bridge watching me. I had some coaching by the OOD, as normal, but it was definitely the most stressful thing I’ve done since being onboard. The first swing around I did to get him, I backed off the engines and rudder too fast and didn’t get him. It’s SO hard because you have a maneuver a HUGE ship between the wind and the man to allow the wind to help guide your ship closer to the man (remember, we don’t have the ability to thrust the ship left and right like cruise or merchant ships, only the rudder to guide us). Then, we had to back up the engines (which obviously takes awhile to go from all ahead flank to all back engines), and use the rudder to do like a “3 point turn” to get the man (which in fact, is a lot easier in a car). The second maneuvering try I was too unconfident in what I was doing and we missed him again. Then, by the third try, I finally got the standard commands to drive the ship, the way in which the rudder moves when the engines are forward and back, and how to use the wind to your advantage, not disadvantage. On the 3rd try, I got the ship to stop right at Oscar to let the SAR swimmer go in. Unfortunately, he has been in the water for about 22 minutes (a perfect time is like 10) and given the “injuries” he sustained, he definitely bled to death. (It was later figured out that the “MOB” was this guy BM2 Biggs, so later in the day I found him to apologize for “killing” him)

Overall, it was a great learning experience; I learned more in 25 minutes conning a man overboard drill than I had the past 5 days on the bridge (considering that every 6 hours we made about one course and speed change in about 10degree rudder increments). It obviously wasn’t perfect shiphandling, but no one is expected to be able to maneuver a 400 ft ship their first try. The CO said I need to be more confident in my commands (like I would say “I think… I think I want to do left full rudder” where as I should have just ORDERED left full rudder. I know if I had to do it again I could easily take 5 minutes off my time. I’ve learned that shiphandling is something that can ONLY be learned with hands on practice to see how the ship responses to commands and how long it takes to slow and speed up the ship while making tight maneuvers.