Evening star., 1898-06-04
GOING INTO COMMISSION,
| Preparations and Ceremonies on
Board of a Man-Of-WaP.

uhu ceremonies ON
Board of a Man-of-War.
From the San Francisco Call.
There has been much talk of late about
putting vessels OF the navy Into commits
sion.'' The full meaning OF the term is
| something of which few have any ade-
| quate conception. To put a modern war
| ship into commission involves an enor-
| nous amount of work, which can he fully
appreciated only by one who has observed
the process from beginning to end.
When vessel of the navy is laid up in
reserve, ''in ordinary" as 1t is called it is
| far from an attractive object. and could
hardly be recognized as the same ship
when in thorough trim with crew aboard
1he ship Is anchored at a convenient navy
yard; the stores are sent ashore, her en-
gires and guns covered with oil ana an
antitrust paint; her decks are allowed to
become dirty, her sides dull and stained
from rusty chains. Thus she lies perhaps
for months. and then an order comes from
| the Secretary of the Navy. through the
chief of the bureau of navigation, directing
the commanding officer of the yard 10 get
her ready for sea
The first thing to be done is to bring as
many men as possible from the receiving
| ship which lies hard by, and these with
the force of the yard, under the direction
OF whatever officers are available begin
at once to put things to rights and remove
the accumulated dust and dirt from the
dnerent parts of the equipment: the en-
gireer's force goes at once to the engines
ana boiler rooms, the antitrust paint is re-
moved from the engines; new packing is
| put in the valves and joints: the pumps
are tested: the rust and dirt knocked from
| interiors of fire boxes and boiler tubes and
CRATE bars renewed.
Outwardly everything is now in fair con-
dition. but this is only the beginning 1t
remains to get up steam in some of the
| boilers, turn over the engines to see If they
are IN proper trim, start the dynamoS test
| the electric lights and the pilot house sig
nals; turn on the searchlights start the
fans, work the steering gear and steering
engines, set the hoisting machinery l., no.
ton. and put the boat cranes in operation
Every engine, boiler, pipe. wire, tube rivet
| bolt, nut and plate is carefully insDectei
ard, if found unserviceabie from any cause
| repaired.
Next the equipment stcrehouse is visited
ara full allowance OF beef. pork beans
potatoes, coffee, sugar salt. flour. meal
cle thing, snoes, harnc"fls, blankets, paint,
! tohacco-fn short, the whole miscelld neous
ass ortment of the c. mnaissary department
| is placed on board The pc ymaster of the
| ship is resp p1nsib.e fer every article recely-
| ed. and a strict account is kept yf clcn
Then the galley or cooking stove mas to be
examined to see whether IL is complete in
| all its findings. The outfit of a galley usu-
ally consi-ts of two cooper kettles of thirty
gallons each, a fifty-gallon kettle with ca st
=.
steamers for vegetables, each with a ca
pacity of thirty-two gallons: two sets of
saucepans, d fine set of tools for lifting
and firing and the ordinary cooking inple-
ments.
The line officers look after the condition
OF the guns, the rigging, the boats, the ca
Dies, the anchors, the flags, and signals,
| the charts, the nautical instruments and
other parts of the ships equipment What
this means can only be appreciated by ore
who has actually undertaken the task \
volume might be written in regard to the
signals alone.
When all this work has been done the
ship is ready to go into commission, and
up to this time everything has been under
control of the commandant of the yard, SO
that when the captain OF the ship arrives
and reports himself to the yard commarsie-
| little remains for him to attend to. In The
meantime men have been brought together
| to constitute the crew.
Sometimes they enlisted particularly
for the ship which is about to go into serv-
Ice, at other times they are withdrawn from
other ships which have just been pat out
| OF commission. The crew and marines re-
port aboard with bags and hammocks: the
captain orders the crew to be drawn up on
| the spar deck promptly at noon upon the
day on which the ship is to be put formally
in commission, reads to them his orders
from the Secretary of the Navy detailing
him to the comma nd, hoists the commission
9ennant to the main truck and the stars
and stripes to the gaff or staff at the stern
and all is ready.
The ship is now in commission.