USS George Washington on schedule for 48-month RCOH

Aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) is on track to dry-dock at Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) in August this year, the U.S. Navy said on Tuesday.

Sailors have been preparing the ship for refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) and have reached the shipboard consolidated offload and outfitting plan (SCOOP) phase, which requires gutting anything that is not hard-wired, plumbed-in or welded to frames to be moved off the ship.

SCOOP began on Feb. 28 and as of day 19, the ship had already completed 63% of this phase.

“We are slated to finish on May 22 but we have already accomplished so much,” said Lt. Dan Simonds, the assistant SCOOP officer. “We started coordinating early and the ship has been very involved. Our hard-working Sailors are not afraid to get their hands dirty and have come together as a team to make this gigantic feat a lot easier than most ships have made it.”

Although SCOOP is a ship-wide evolution, certain departments have played a bigger role than others.

“Some departments own more real estate than others,” said Simonds. “For example, the air and supply departments have a lot more spaces that need to be SCOOPed. It may seem like they have a heavy work load, but they also have more personnel than other departments to get the job done.”

Deck, one of the larger departments on the ship, has completed 100 percent of their SCOOP items.

USS George Washington is on track to start the planned 48-month RCOH maintenance period dry-dock on Aug. 4.