Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) finished the Shipboard Consolidated Offload and Outfitting Plan (SCOOP), in preparation for refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) maintenance scheduled for Aug. 4.

George Washington offloaded 60,000 line items of repair parts from storerooms, emptied approximately 2,300 spaces, and used 45,000 triwalls of items from work centers around the ship during SCOOP.

"We finished SCOOP 25 percent earlier than scheduled," said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Kidd, George Washington's SCOOP coordinator. "We were scheduled to complete SCOOP May 22, and this is the fastest SCOOP on record for a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier."

SCOOP, which is similar to a household goods move, but on a larger scale, required a lot of people, moving parts and planning, but with the work of the George Washington crew, the ship was able to get an early start on things so deadlines could be met.

"We started preparing for SCOOP early on," said Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Jason Wyatt, George Washington's Deck departmental SCOOP coordinator. "As soon as we heard about what needed to be done, we started staging our spaces to ensure the actual offload would go smoothly. We moved everything to a centralized location so we just had to offload the items from there instead of from all our spaces all over the ship."

According to Wyatt, one of the most difficult parts was ensuring all the divisions within deck department all matched the pace of the SCOOP process. George Washington's deck department was the first department to complete SCOOP and took about 25 days to complete.

"Since SCOOP is finished and out of the way, we can start on the maintenance we need to do before we actually get to the yards," said Kidd. "We're now doing what is called Smart Start. We're going to try to knock out as much of that work as we can to ensure we exit out of the yards on time. It is much cheaper for the Navy to do maintenance here than when we get to the yards."

Smart Start is an RCOH preparation phase before the ship moves to the shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. It involves setting up wiring and cableways and ventilation needed for RCOH and ensuring the contractors have the necessary work centers ready for work.

George Washington will be dry-docked at Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries for a slated 48-month RCOH maintenance period early August 2017.

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