Ron Gordon – Sea running and sea riding

Then I did sea running and sea riding on quite a few nuclear submarines and other diesel submarines when I was in Captain [inaudible] trials. 

Simon: Could you explain what that is?

It’s when  you go … when they come out of their either refits or the long maintenance periods, you go to sea and then you check out their sonar systems. You check out the radar systems and everything else as well, but I was a Sonar Trials Officer, so I go to sea and check out the sonars were working correctly. 

One of the areas we go to is … we went out to Stavanger in Norway. There was a range out there where you could check all the equipment ‘cos you knew exactly what the bearings were of everything, and they were set up for it, for doing that. There was also a place off Fort Lauderdale, the Andros Islands called the AUTEC. There’s deep water out there where you could do trials out there as well, so it’s those sorts of areas.

Then there was BUTEC off the Kyle of Localsh in Scotland. There’s deep water up there as well, so these were the areas you’d go to do all these sorts of trials.

Simon: And that’s a sort of tuning in … you know where the map is …

Tuning, making sure that everything, all the sonar systems work correctly, the bearing accuracy is correct.

The same with radars, you know they make sure their distance accuracy is correct, the bearing accuracy is correct, so that’s what you did.

You had to trial all that to make sure it was correct before you gave them a Sea Acceptance Pass for the trial.