Getting Underway! Kicking the Tires, Lighting the Fires...

One of the fun and interesting things I got to do while aboard USS Bataan was to be invited down to watch the lighting of the boiler in preparation for getting underway. So we were shown down to the Aft Engine room, checked in at the Control Room, and went out into the Engine Room proper, with hearing protection and our sketchbooks and cameras to record the event.

It was a rare and exotic place, down in the depths of the ship where the Engineering Spaces are. Loud, hot, and somewhat frenetic.-- and while many would imagine that a modern warship would be nuclear-,  gas turbine-, or diesel-powered, the LHD runs on steam power generated by an old-school boiler! 

It was a blast from the past, how they lit the boiler: they basically used the equivalent of a large metal match!

After the crazy interesting scene of the lighting, we were able to sketch in the Control Room as the sailors manned the Boiler Console. Here are two quick pen sketches of the scene:

A couple days later, after we were underway, Victor Juhasz and I were invited by MM2 Thomas Gill to come down and sketch him and his coworkers in the other Engine Room, the Forward Engine Room. We were happy to oblige, to go down into their harsh environment and take some time to document their daily experience. We went there the next day, and sketched them talking shop, working on boiler barrels, and so on.