Trump doesn’t like rusty boats: This U.S. Navy engineer is trying to solve the problem - “There’s no great solution”

Anyone who lives in areas where snow is a common feature of winter knows that you will most likely have issues with rusting on your vehicle over time. That’s because the salt that is used to melt the ice on the roads ends up bonding with the water and then over time corroding any metal with which it comes into contact if not cleaned off in a timely manner.

So, it should come as no surprise that the problem of rust is a never-ending challenge for the U.S. Navy as its ships spend most of their time sailing around in saltwater. The issue became of special importance to President Donald Trump after he saw a picture of the USS Dewey, an Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer, pulling into port at Singapore last year covered in “runny rust.”

“We know what to do, but we choose not to do it”

Mark Lattner, director of the Navy’s Ship Integrity and Performance Engineering, Naval Systems Engineering Directorate, at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium shared what is behind the chronic problem and what can be done about it, reports The War Zone. Despite the issue having been a bugbear for years, finding a solution to it became one of his main missions after Trump began obsessively posting about it on his social media account.

During a panel at the symposium he said: “We know what to do, but we choose not to do it. And we choose not to do it because there’s always some other problem I’ve got to fix. I don’t have time. Our corrosion can wait. And so we don’t implement the fixes.”

However, Lattner said that there are some “simple” solutions to the problem like:

• Wider use of polysiloxane paint:  an paint developed for anti-graffiti use, that is “very robust, very good paint, easy to clean”
• Adding good scuppers: drain openings on the bulwark of a vessel
• Using materials that are less prone to rust: composites like stainless steel
• Reducing sailors’ workload: single pack paints that require minimal preparation by sailors
• More rust-preventative maintenance
• Special cleaners that make it easier to clean rust

Lattner also pointed out that the Navy has developed an app that can be used on crew members’ smartphones which they can input data about the state of the vessel. This allows the sailors to go around the ship following a check list when they inspect it and note: “This looks good. This doesn’t look good. This needs improvement.”

Instead of it just being a qualitative report, it produces a quantitative number to get a more precise grade for the state of the vessel.

“Not trying to eat the elephant all at once”

Unlike cruise lines, Lattner acknowledges that the Navy will never have all of its ships as shiny as they do. When those companies perform maintenance in port, they work on very tight availabilities and “they’ll never use a company again if they don’t meet those timelines,” he pointed out.

“We in the Navy are unfortunately kinder and gentler, right? So right, wrong or indifferent. I’m more tolerant,” he said. “The longer I wait between different evolutions, the more likely things are going to go south, right? And we’ll have to work with that, right? There’s no great solution.”

However, he says that the Navy is always looking for better solutions. Lattner explained that improvements in training are underway, bringing in expert teams to teach the sailors the best and easiest modes of painting ships.

And because some of the solutions are beyond the Navy’s own abilities, it is also employing contractors to do the work that sailors just can’t. This includes things like executing corrosion control, installing scuppers and applying films.

“They’ll do some preservation. They’ll do cleaning, getting the ships better,” he explained. “And what we’re doing is not trying to eat the elephant all at once, but one bite at a time.”

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