According to one crew member that means there is no attachment to any boat.
"There is no pride, or incentive to take pride, in the boat," the crew member said.
"Morale is dead and sailors are leaving in disgust."
That's a big call. Really, multi-crewing is a huge improvement for shore time and rest postings. It's not completely untrue about the lack of attachment, but you're talking about small crews and small vessels, which starts to look more like planes and pilots.... Doesn't matter which airframe you are taking out, you're doing your job.
Sadly, this 'inside source' isn't seeing the bigger value of getting more time ashore and rest-posted. If they wanted continual service aboard a ship, they simply need to move to another vessel type. If it was a serious problem, then COMAUSNAVPBGRP would hear about it and address it.
HMAS Maitland sailors escape putrid gassing
FOUR navy sailors narrowly escaped death when they were "gassed" aboard an Armidale class patrol boat.
The fleet inspectors, who conduct war readiness inspections aboard navy vessels, were asleep on HMAS Maitland in Darwin when they were overcome by hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg) gas in the spare bunk room.
The gas was generated by a failure of the boat's sewage treatment plant, a defence spokesman said.
The fault has not been fully rectified and the accommodation areas on the Armidales remain off-limits.
Despite the seriousness of the incident, it was kept a secret by the navy.
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As a blissfully ignorant civilian I was impressed when I went on a tour of one of them, but am concerned they seem to have quite a lot of problems. And the HS gassing of the green team on Maitland seems to me a truly shocking event, I hope the guys suffer no lasting medical problems.
Blah blah blah. Hype from the media. Toxic Hazard is a real risk, and you'd be surprised how often this stuff collects aboard ships of any type. I can't tell you any statistics, and I can't tell you how often I have seen it aboard our ships (both of these things for obvious reasons), but I can tell you it is an extremely well-practiced and drilled emergency. I've been involved in countless DCEx and CasEx scenarios, and also the very Real Deal, and believe me you only have to say the words "Toxic Hazard" and sailors and officers alike slip into an incredibly high gear.
No mention was made as to how much exposure was experienced by the Green Team, nor what the reaction of the crew was. Perhaps the real questions that should be asked is how the warning system responded: Was it functioning correctly? Did the Green Team miss the call or hear it an escape? If they didn't, was it a communications system failure? Was it a failure of the warning system? Was it a big fault that suddenly dumped a large volume of H2S? Or was it a small leak? Was it a design fault, or an induced fault?
Most likely it is simply a case of the press overstating the facts yet again in an effort to sell more advertising, and everyone reacted as per drilled, and no big deal.
I'm skeptical due to the lack of details. Saying they 'narrowly escaped death' is like saying 'firefighters risked their lives to put out a blaze' - it's part of the job, and it happens, surprisingly often.
Are these kind of teething problems to be expected, or is this yet another Defence screw-up?
An how much responsibility should navy command take for this?
As I said, it is more a regular problem across other ships in the Navy, and also the world. I wouldn't call it a teething problem necessarily, but if a weakness in the turd farm is discovered, it'll be rectified quick smart. Good juice if no-one got hurt finding out. Hate to play down this incident, but it's really not that newsworthy - in fact I'm interested to know how this paper got the source.
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A note for the uninitiated:
H2S is an insidious gas: Initially at low concentrations, you can smell it. However, as the concentration increases to dangerous levels, a phenomenon called "Olfactory Fatigue" occurs, where your sense of smell disappears. Worse, once this happens it is too late. You'll be merrily working away, and you'll suddenly smell something odd and think "what's that?" You'll try to sniff for it again, but nothing. Typically, you'll lose consciousness shortly thereafter, never knowing what it was that got you.
H2S is common on ships that have sewage systems. Aboard all RAN ships, there is an oversupply of small, emergency-only hoods with an adequate supply of compressed air to allow escape. Called the ELSRD (say: Ellsred), they can protect (and every one is drilled in the use of them in a 'hot' environment) from smoke, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, which are the killers aboard ships.
