An Cosantóir

24 | have the power to stop that ship from going to sea. 'Significant' means we give them a certain number of days to amend the defect, and 'minor' means they can carry on but have to be aware of the issue and get it sorted as soon as possible," Cdr Twomey explained to us. During sea evaluation the FORST team spend ten days at sea with the ship being checked. Every ship's captain knows when his ship's sea evaluation is to take place and other assessments and training revolve around that date. During sea evaluation the ship and its crew are tested and assessed in almost every conceivable scenario; from how they deal with bad weather right down to how they deal with an aggressive attack from an external agent that may be using weapons or IEDs. Anti-aircraft shoots, damage control, fire-fighting, man-overboard drills, heli-ops, scheme-of-defence, replenishment-at-sea, and towing, are just a number of scenarios that can be exercised, and to pile additional pressure on the crew the FORST team often throw in multiple scenarios for them to deal with. "Because we are assessing core mariner skills a lot of the exercises overlap," said Cdr Twomey. "For example, 80% of fire-fighting procedures also apply to damage-control. There's no point carrying out a fire-fighting exercise in the morning and a damagecontrol exercise in the afternoon and watching the same mistakes being made, so after each exercise we pass on the information to the ship's captain and allow him, or her, the time to pass it on to the crew. We've come to the realisation that for an exercise to be of benefit we have to have a proper pre-exercise brief, a post-exercise assessment and a debrief for ourselves, followed by a debrief of the ship's officers and heads of department so that benefit of the exercise is passed on." All members of the FORST team agree that standards cannot be allowed to slip. As one of the team told me: "These are essential skill. For example, a fire at sea has to be put out as quickly as possible because if it spreads you may lose the ship and the crew." Therefore, if any exercise is failed it must be redone. In the 'Bandit red' scenario that took place at the same time as the fire-fighting exercise on our ship, a drunken civilian armed with a knife had forced his way on board. The vessel was berthed in port and most of the crew were away on R&R. All that remained onboard was the eight-person duty watch. All of a sudden the naval patrol vessel becomes a huge maze for the armed response team that has been mustered. As the exercise develops, the FORST team assesses the crew's response time, their application of COD 6, and how they clear the ship. While intruders carrying out harm on a naval vessel may not seem a very likely scenario, it is far from unheard of. In September 1990 the Provisional IRA boarded the Royal Fleet Auxiliary replenishment ship, Fort Victoria, while it was docked in Belfast and planted two IEDs, one of which went off in the engine room, putting the ship out of action for nearly two years. In October 2000 An Cosantóir June 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie the USS Cole was attacked by a suicide bomber while being refuelled in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 US sailors and injuring 39. And only last December an intruder broke into the Coonawarra Naval Base, in Darwin, Australia, boarded a moored patrol boat, overwhelmed the duty watch, broke into the armoury and stole a cache of weapons. "Scenarios like this, thankfully, have never happened to us," Cdr Twomey told us, "but we have to be prepared for every eventuality. Our mission profile may change or we could simply be replenishing our troops on an overseas mission and a belligerent that dislikes our presence sees an opportunity. As for criminals, well at home or abroad if they want something bad enough they'll try anything." Passing sea evaluation is not the same as getting your car through the NCT. It doesn't mean the captain and crew can relax until the next year as the FORST team can arrive unannounced at any time to carry out a threat assessment exercise. "We can arrive to carry out an exercise as a ship is coming in or heading out of port, or while it's out on patrol," Cdr Twomey said. "We then forward the assessment of the exercise to OC Naval Operations Command. However, the point of these exercises is not to catch people out but rather to motivate ships' captains to invest in training over the full twelve-month period." These exercises certainly test ship's captains and crew members to the limit as could be seen clearly in the relieved faces we saw when the announcement "End ex: stand easy!" came over the intercom. With the training phase coming to an end our ship's crew are now gearing up to prepare themselves and their ship for the SSARC Harbour stage.

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