The Role of Executive Officer On Board Ship

We didn’t have much time to really sit back and think, you know, the first day at sea you’re just getting adjusted and your sea legs back but we had sea training embarked and we had HMCS Fraser with us and we had a very active program going across the Atlantic doing internal workups and ship drills and getting ourselves ready for whatever potential threat there was going to be in the Persian Gulf because there was the known factor; at that time potential biological chemical warfare so we were practicing internal damage control for potential missile strikes if we were under attack or whatever. So it was a very busy time going across, we never really had time to sit back and relax.

In the ship you have watch keepers that stand watch throughout the ship and they are on a watch rotation. My specific position as executive officer is known as a day job so I sort of worked 9 to 5 or 8 to 4, but really available 24 hours. My responsibility was looking after the internal ship’s organization, the manpower, the administration of the ship and morale and things like that so I was basically constantly on my feet going throughout the ship along with the coxswain and just keeping my finger on the pulse making sure divisional officers are looking after the people in their departments and it’s just, you know, a day to day activity like that. And in the evenings you catch up on your paperwork and paperwork never ends so it was a full program.