Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center’s (MARMC) floating drydock Dynamic (AFDL) 6 welcomed a heavy-lift reserve team to Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story for a Heavy Lift/Salvage Tabletop Exercise at June 1-12.
The team oversees the salvage, recovery and marine transport of extremely large, heavy, or damaged vessels. The two-week exercise was designed to increase their proficiency for heavy lift ship float-on and float-off evolutions by bridging classroom theory with hands-on simulation.
Dynamic Commanding Officer, Lt. Cmdr. Jeremy Mayfield hosted the exercise, which was led by MARMC Battle Creek, Mich., Reserve Commanding Officer, Lt. Cmdr. Chris McDermott.
The first week of the course consisted of mostly classroom sessions focused on drydocking calculations, with some hands-on exercises followed by a proficiency exam at the end of the week.
Week two consisted of more hands-on applications and a simulation of a docking and undocking aboard Dynamic at the end of the week which displayed how to take measurements of a ship from starting on top of the blocks to being lifted and vice versa. It was executed utilizing Landing Craft Unit 1663 from Assault Craft Unit Two.
“This course sets the stage for the prospective heavy lift officers to be setup for success when running salvage calculations with their teams and pass their heavy lift docking officer qualification boards,” said Mayfield. “It also prepares Sailors for being able to salvage ships, get them back to their home base for repairs and return them to action.”
Mayfield added that collaborating with the team provided he and the Dynamic crew insight on the important role heavy lift operations play in maintaining fleet readiness.
“This was a great training evolution with the reserve team and active-duty team working together,” he said. “Until I came to Dynamic, I didn’t know much about the heavy Lift team. These are the folks who do all the critical calculations to salvage ships that have been damaged and get them home safely to be repaired and back in the fight. That is a critical and awesome skill set!
“I would like to give a special ‘thank you,’ to Lt. Cmdr. Charliean Dominguez, Lt. Cmdr. Eric Mancl and Lt. Cmdr. Mcdermott for taking the time over the past year to plan the training and really make it a successful evolution. Their training was valuable to the Dynamic team!"'=
MARMC, a field activity under Program Acquisition Executive (PAE) Industrial Operations (IO), provides surface ship maintenance, management and oversight of private sector maintenance and fleet technical assistance to ships in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.