Amidst 350-pound anchor chain links and directly above USS Nimitz’s twin gold-painted 60,000-pound anchors, you will find Travis Mason in the forecastle.
The forecastle (pronounced folks ul) of an aircraft carrier for those unused to mariner-speak is in the bow (or front) of the ship.
Mason spoke with passion about the training he gives to the crew he oversees—a whopping 40% of whom are new to him every year.
I have a hard time imagining what 40% turnover looks like, never mind what it does for job efficiency. Mason isn’t phased though, perhaps because over his 20 plus years in the Navy, he’s learned how to make things work. “We do a lot of training,” he says.
Interspersed with his commentary, a primal rumbling, rattling and screeching indicated that the steam catapults above our heads were launching aircraft…a lot of them. Imagine a screeching fan belt, banging metal trash can lids at near deafening volume; shake the ground you’re standing on and add heavy, feel-it-in-your-chest bass—that’s as close to what a catapulting aircraft feels like in the forecastle as I can describe. Mason just smiles the whole time. “Yeah, that happens a lot. Seems to happen whenever I’m talking in here.” He smiles again and continues splicing a hemp line.
As you’d imagine, the forecastle was spotless, each chain link painted a gloss black. He detailed an aircraft carrier’s anchoring procedure—with the ship in a slow reverse, the anchors are dropped, followed by link after link after link of chain. “It’s the chain that really holds the ship in place,” he explained. The ship will swing around on her anchor chains through the night; special swivels built into the chain prevent them from getting tangled.
And how does one coil the massive links when they are pulled back into the ship? It’s not an issue at all says Mason. “They pretty much take care of themselves.” They are so large, he says, that they’ve never gotten tangled and he doesn’t see how they ever could.
Mason’s hands were busy splicing a line together the majority of the time he spent with us. Hearing him speak so openly about the love he has for his job and the fact that after his upcoming retirement he’s going to be “doing the same thing, just not for the Navy” in the Pacific Northwest that he will soon call home made me smile—as well as the advice he has for the crew working for him—“I know they don’t all want to stay here. So I want to see them do what makes them happy.”
I attempted the bowline on a bight that his whirling hands effortlessly produced, but I need a few more decades of practice to even come close to Mason.
| Thanks to the United States Navy for the opportunity to visit the USS Nimitz and see and experience first-hand what life aboard looks like. |
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