From the time I was a deck seaman having to perform Morning Watch Routine on the Main Deck (sweep, swab and polish bright work) and for the rest of my time aboard ship, I hated it when the BTs blew tubes on the Mid-Watch. In the morning there would be these half dollar size clumps of soot all over the ship’s decks. You could not just sweep them up because they would just smear, so the only option was to swab them up. In very short order, the water would need changing because it was black, and when you were done, it would have been easier to throw the swab away then to clean it, but clean it we did. How I used to curse the snipes for doing this to me! Many times on mid watch as Messenger or PO of the watch I would answer the phone and it would be Main Control requesting to blow the tubes, a request to which the OOD would immediately grant and we would proceed to get undercover so that we did not get the soot on our whites. Years later when I was standing OOD Watches, Main Control requested permission to blow tubes and I tried something different; I said “NO”. Nobody in Main Control was upset, the ship did not sink from an over accumulation of soot, the next morning there was no soot on the decks and all was good with the world! There were only two conditions under which I did not allow the tubes to be blown; the first was if there was no wind, and the second was if the wind was coming from aft and the soot would fall on the ASROC Deck.
