Wednesday, August 10, 2011

"Navy Showers"

For those of you who have been in the Navy you can fully appreciate this. For those of you who haven’t, here is how it works. On ships where fresh water is a limited resource, it becomes necessary to refine personal hygiene beyond a level taught to youth. The "Navy Shower" is an accepted way to limit water use while maintaining an adequate level of bodily cleanliness. Following rules similar to those for brushing teeth, water is only used
when absolutely necessary.    

A typical Navy Shower algorithm:

1.Strip.

2.Turn on water.

3.Regardless of whether or not the water has reached desired temperature, wet entire body from toes to scalp.
4.Turn off water.

5.Using soap, shampoo, and other cleansing products, build up an acceptable amount of lather.

6.Turn on water again.

7.Rinse.

8.Turn off water.

9.Do not repeat, as you have already used more than enough water.
Note that this is the polar opposite of a Hollywood Shower and in fact rarely builds a level of psychological reassurance provided by allowing gallons of warm water to pour over one's body. But you've gotta do what you've gotta do. However, those of us who were smart enough to figure it out, the shower curtain hooks made great tools to hold the nozzle buttons on the shower heads down. It became obvious what was happening when the curtains in each stall were being held up by one or two hooks.


39 comments:

  1. My favorite was when some turd chaser down in the dark parts of the ship would some how swap all hot and cold water with the steam used to turn the turbines. Burnt my sack more than once that way.

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  2. I always wonder WTF on a brand new nuclear carrier you would think at least a little bit of warm water was possible. once in a while but noooo.

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    1. Dunno... On Ike, we were 3 notches below Live Steam coming from our little squirty-nozzle puck things.

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    2. What got my goat more than once was taking Navy Showers in water that smelled like JP5, then going on deck and seeing the wingwipers spraying fresh water on the airplanes to keep 'em clean. I was dumb, I guess, but I thought people were more important than planes. Guess I was wrong!

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  3. Ah yes, listening for the "Bang-Bang-Banging" of the pipes that meant the Snipes turned some valve and you have 5 seconds to vacate the shower before live steam comes out. Got out in '89 and have had at least ONE Hollywood DAILY since...

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  4. Try taking a Bird bath in front of twenty guy, for weeks on end. You learn not to be self conscious of your body.

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  5. Now a lot of ships have those time-limiting shower knobs where you push the button and about 1 - 3 minutes later the water shuts off. But regulating the temperature is still tricky. Have taken a lot of unwanted cold showers onboard ship. Anyway...retired now and wife says she has never known anyone take a quicker shower than me. I thought I always took a nice long shower and compared to those onboard ship they are. I grew up in a home without running water and being able to have even a short shower was great to me. Appreciate what you have!

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    1. Back in the early 50's I lived in Ohio, we didn't have a bath, we had the path. Hot water was heated on a wood stove and poured in a tub. Was glad when I got in high school and had gym classes about 3 times a week, Wow, hot water showers!

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  6. Have a teenage daughter? you can have all the cold showers you want...

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  7. DBF , on a diesel submarine the showerstall / head in the Fwd torpedo room held potatoes . Don't think I ever saw the aft one. Took long ones in port.

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    1. Under way our skipper let them open up the showers one day a week. Would have to be fast when you have about 20 guys waiting their turn !

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  8. Didn't matter how long you soaped up though!

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  9. You had shower curtains? Not on my tin can.

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  10. Nothing like a freshwater shower on the deck plates of the burner front during water restrictions

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    1. As a "half-snipe" (EM), I made certain to stay on good terms with the MMs & BTs so I'd be able to use the "UA" shower facility down in the hole

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  11. On an FF we went looking for summer squalls and showered on the main deck. Although very cold, it was more reliable than in the head.

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  12. Try showering in the field... had to hve 10 people. Water trned on for 10 seconds. When everyone was lathered up and done washing, water turned back on for 20 seconds to rinse off. Next group...

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  13. Damn straight on the shower hooks. We got back to Bremerton early in the year. We were on stand-down and didn't have to report to the ship unless we had duty.
    Well-of-fucking-course, our head had no hot water. At fucking all. So, being on stand-down, not a fucking thing got fixed. Got tired of the shit and started wandering around for a hot shower. Shower shoes, towel around my waist, and toiletry bag.

    Encountered a group headed aft on the O3 level. Officer leading the way. Nobody said a fucking word, but some of the Ladies smiled at me. Went through that shit for over a month.

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  14. Back in the early 80's we were doing a 6 week tour at GETMO in July and August. We spent Mon-Fri at anchor and on water hours, which actually meant NO WATER. Couple that with numerous NBC warfare drills with secured ventilation and gas mask life was just wonderful. A good number of us developed severe crotch or toe rot.

    After a trip to medical doc gave me some smelly oil medicine to put on a case of crotch rot and I applied it. During an NBC drill Doc and the bridge both got ahold of me to tell me... ooops wrong stuff, dont put that on you. Too late. I was authorized to take a hollywood shower, during water hours, during GQ at an NBC station to get it off. The good news was I wasnt treated as a training opportunity of how to scrub NBC cooties off. The bad news was I got the shit beat out of me for singing and shooting water out of the shower at people during my GQ hollywood shower.

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  15. Saltwater wash downs on the fantail in the Red Sea

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  16. aviation fuels spilled a lot of gas on your self, oopps ,had to take a shower between water hours, in the south china sea

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  17. You kids make me laugh, we were on water hours and the Captain gave away almost all of our fresh water to a river boat that pulled up alongside, made us all feel good...

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  18. We had a couple airedale skippers. Seems every time a bird farm was alongside, they asked to 'borrow' 10,000 gallons of fresh water. They never got refused so we were on water hours for 4 days, Ended just in time for another carrier unrep.

    USS Pictor AF-54 DEC 63 TO NOV 66

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  19. On the old Saratoga there were no showers. You got a bucket with fresh water. Stuck a steamhead in it if you wanted it hot.
    Bucket had to do for shower, shave, cleaning, brush teeth et Al. In

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  20. On the old Saratoga there were no showers. You got a bucket with fresh water. Stuck a steamhead in it if you wanted it hot.
    Bucket had to do for shower, shave, cleaning, brush teeth et Al. In

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  21. On the old Saratoga there were no showers. You got a bucket with fresh water. Stuck a steamhead in it if you wanted it hot.
    Bucket had to do for shower, shave, cleaning, brush teeth et Al. In

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  22. The only ship I was on that had no water problem was JFK CV67. She was designed as a nuke, but the changed to conventional steam, so we had excess water storage, as well as evaps, etc.

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  23. On the old springalite (clg-7) in the summer time you never need hot water. The cold water was hotter than the hot water

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  24. We just took showers in the pit, under the hotwell. We a had a garden hose and a bucket with a chunk of carpet to stand on. Not ideal but it worked well enough.

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  25. What is a “cold shower” or “water hours”? VP Navy (LOL)

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    1. Those P2s and P3s did fit on them bird farms. lol

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  26. I've taken H'wood showers(sub tender that never went out to sea), Navy Showers, Bird Baths, Diesel flats showers and Fantail rain showers(LST on WestPac when our F/W system went down for 9 days), but my favorite shower was at the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach While on the USS Leahy CG-16. Before leaving on WestPac (jul78) we went to onload weapons-maybe nukes, I still don't know, Im a snipe! What I do know is that we had shore power and no water. So, we had to use the showers about 100 yards from the ship. There were 2 yellow likes on the pier and 6 armored vehicles with Marines training their M-60's on you all the way there and back with orders to shoot if you stepped outside the lines. Those lines looked about 12 inches apart. Of the countless showers I've taken in my 61 years, I will never forget that one...

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  27. Do the maintenance on the evaps!

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  28. When on Med Cruise on DD853 early 70's, Enginering had boiler problems and we were in dire straits for fresh water so Engineering routed salt water to the showers and that what we had to to use to shower. Fresh water was available in the sinks for shaving and teeth brushing.

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  29. Ahhh that was the best part of being a EN and making the water... had a shower set up in AMR3.....

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  30. Our battleship had been built for a WWII crew of 3000 but sailed in the 1980s with a crew of 1600, so we never had water hours to worry about while I was on board. That was good. The bad was that the yardbirds who refitted her didn't understand that water flows downhill; they poured the shower drain pans with the drain at the high spot! Every time you took a shower you had to stand in two inches of filthy water.

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  31. On the Trigger SS 564, if you got caught wasting water under way you were made to stand a four hour watch on the stills, as I remember, eng room temp 120 deg!Most never made that mistake a second time

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  32. You had shower curtain hooks?? Never saw a shower curtain on my old tin can.

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  33. 42 days and nights, 1 hour/day drinking water only. Would have loved any kind of shower. USS Prairie at Pratas Reef getting the Knox off the Rocks.

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