New purpose-built dive boat will save PSNS & IMF time, money while helping to support critical work

New purpose-built dive boat will save PSNS & IMF time, money while helping to support critical work

By Max Maxfield, PSNS & IMF Public Affairs

The divers with Code 760, Regional Dive Locker at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility took delivery of a new purpose-built dive boat in May.

The new boat replaces an Explosive Ordnance Disposal support boat built in 1991 that PSNS & IMF acquired in 2007.

According to Mike Richardson, Diving Operations manager, Code 760, the new boat will help the divers accomplish their mission more effectively and comfortably.

"The new boat is a purpose-built dive boat with a Marine Knuckle Boom crane," said Richardson. "It has fixtures and stands to hold dive gear, space and weight allotments for cabinets and tooling, hydraulic power units to drive our underwater tools and the MKB, a diver's dressing room where divers can change in and out of their wetsuits and take a shower after the dive."

Richardson said the new boat will support the critical work achieved by PSNS & IMF.

"All of the work here at the shipyard is important to our national security," he said. "Our [divers] work can save the shipyard time, money and reduce dry dock time by executing work pierside. Some of our recent emergent work was conducted outside the continental United States, and allowed one of our ships to remain forward deployed."

The new boat, designated 65DS2001, was built in Tacoma, and has an expected service life of 25 years. It can carry 14 people and has a shallow draft, which allows it to moor against submarines. The hull has long strips of rubber running fore and aft, both above and below the waterline, to prevent damaging a submarine moored alongside.

Richardson said this diving boat will be used to support a wide variety of missions.

"We'll use it for surface-supplied Underwater Ship Husbandry diving; work on surface ships and submarines; installing and removing cofferdams; hull inspections; propeller and secondary propulsion unit removal and replacement; work in ballast tanks; as well as shipyard infrastructure missions such as cleaning and inspecting dry dock caissons and tunnels, stop logs and fire mains," Richardson explained.

"We will also take sea floor sediment samples for scientists," he said. "The dive boats with cranes are also used to retrieve items and equipment from the inactive ships fleet and from vessels at Mooring Alpha; and to maneuver cofferdams in and out of the water and load and unload diving equipment from the dive boats and barges."

The new dive boat also has several features common to dive boats used in the civilian world.

"The dive boat has a built-in air compressor and hydraulic system to power the MKB and underwater hydraulic tools and an educator pump used to dewater cofferdams," Richardson said. "There is space allocated for the divers' air system, a galley and a bathroom (head) on board, a swim step with integrated ladder for diver recovery, and umbilical racks."