Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) have been preparing the ship for refueling complex overhaul (RCOH) maintenance scheduled for Aug. 4, 2017.

Currently, George Washington is in 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."

Along with the Sailors, civilian contractors have also played a major role with SCOOP.

"The Sailors do the bulk of the lifting," said Brad Forbes, the SCOOP project manager for Huntington Ingalls Industries. "They decide what they want to keep for now or have it boxed and returned to them once RCOH finishes. They bring us their supplies and we deal with the logistics of packing it up and taking it to the warehouse for storage."

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

"Some departments own more real estate than others," said Simonds. "For example, air and supply department 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 then other departments to get the job done."

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

According to Simonds, the crew benefits from finishing early as it allows more time to perform other daily maintenances and prepare for RCOH.

The ship is on track to dry-dock at Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries on Aug. 4, which will begin the planned 48-month RCOH maintenance period.

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