As the USS Hollister (DD 788) began her preparations for the six-month (supposedly) overhaul to begin in September 1974, which was eventually awarded to Todd Shipyards in Long Beach, my Master Chief Boiler Tender and i went down to the firerooms (Man, i can’t believe i cannot remember his name: we spent many hours together, and he saved my bacon more than once. He was also the only chief in the deep holes, firerooms and engine rooms after the ship went to the reserves. i’ll finally either remember or find his name and add it here. He was a great chief.
The Pre-Overhaul Test and Inspection (POT&I) team from the Surface Forces, Pacific would be coming on board soon to test critical equipment in the engineering plant and throughout the ship.
The master chief and i went down into the forward fireroom to the forced draft blowers, huge blowers that sent a lot of air into the boilers. There were two blowers for each boiler, four in the forward fireroom and four in the after fireroom. The master chief went to the first one, pulled a nickel out of his pocket and placed it, standing on end, on the top of the blower. He yelled for the duty BT to turn on the blower. It revved up and ran for a couple of minutes. The BTCM proceeded to the rest of the blowers in the forward fireroom, and i accompanied him as we repeated the process in the after fireroom. If the nickel fell down, the master chief proclaimed that the blower would need an overhaul. When we completed the master chief’s tests. He announced that three of the eight blowers needed an overhaul and the other five were fine with regular maintenance.
About a month later, the POT&I team came aboard. They went to the firerooms and hooked up a whole bunch of expensive and sophisticated electronic equipment with wires and meters and lord knows what else to the blowers. They ran their tests and about a month later, they sent us the results. Their tests, Lord knows how much they cost, revealed three of the forced draft blowers needed an overhaul but the other five did not. They were exactly what the master chief had determined with his nickel.