Ami Burns – Doing a BSQ walk around

So, they’re awful. And I don’t mean awful in a bad way, I mean awful in that they … once you’ve done a walk round, on an SSBN your walk round is split up into three areas, for’ard which is the for’ard staff which is the strategic weapons and back aft is for the Marine Engineers to do, and to facilitate your presentation to do a Board, so before you’re even allowed to sit a Board, you’ve got to do for’ard, mid and aft, with a member of the sort of Senior Rates of those respective areas and then as an Officer you then have to go round with the DMEO or you have to go round with the XO or you have to go round with the … you have to kind of do the same thing over and over again but with different people who want a different level of knowledge from you to make sure that you will, when you sit down to do your Board, the knowledge that you need to sit and do the Board.

The idea being is by the time you’ve done your walk rounds; you should have covered almost everything in your BSQ and it should be a formality. It should, not always the case at all, and so the walk round can be 5 or 6 hours.

Simon: That’s a long time isn’t it?

At the time.

Simon: And that’s you just spurting information the whole time.

Literally. This is the HP Air System, this is what it supplies, these are the valves that you use, and it’s absolutely required. It’s not that it’s not required, it’s so in-depth because you need to know. If you walk into a … for’ard dome is where generally we start, if you walk intro there and there’s a HP Gas burst, or ‘what system is it coming from? Is it HP Air? Is it something else?’

Simon: That’s high pressure is it?

Yes, High Pressure Air. What system is it going to affect if you shut that valve because you’re trying to isolate it to protect the boat? You almost have to think about second and third order effects in your actions and that’s what the BSQ is there for.