Shaving on a Ship!

[Jacob.Allison]

Well, about a week ago my ship, the USS George Washington, pulled back into her homeport of Yokosuka, Japan.

It was a great summer -- we hit South Korea and Hong Kong, and while we did have a couple of incidents that really sucked, for the most part it went very well. This was also the first time I tried wet-shaving on the ship.

In short, it worked great! I had to budget the time in for my morning routine, but since that's normally up at 0445 for PT anyway, it was easy enough. I didn't really have any problems with getting the brush to dry out, even in my coffin locker. I used Van Der Hans shave soap for about the first half of the cruise then purchased some Taylor's of Old Bond Street shaving cream, which really made things go a lot faster. I was lucky, as i barely had enough blades for the first half of the cruise. (I seemed to need to change it more often than I did while we were in port, not sure if it was a technique thing or the conditions degrading the edge faster.)

All in all, it's good to be back (for a little while) and I want to thank everyone who gave me advice on making this work.

 

[Jtokle]

Thanks for your service! A close friend of mine is serving on the USS Stethem, which is also based out of Yokosuka. Glad to see that you had a good shaving experience.

 

[Marco]

Excellent Jacob! Which Taylors cream are you currently using?

 

[duokun]

Congrats on the successful shaving while deployed! Also, thanks for your service!

 

[Shaving_CHENG]

When and if you transfer to a small boy wet shaving gets a little more complicated. Adjusting for the pitch, roll and yaw makes for a fun morning.

 

[FL shaver]

Where/when did you pick up your cream? What is in your kit for brush, blade, and razor? I'm kinda curious about what sort of incidents you experienced! Thanks for sharing your story!

 

[dpmtherrien]

Good for you, and nice going. Another thanks for your service.

 

[OldSaw]

Sounds great.

Back in my Navy days I used a Surrey (now Van Der Hagen) brush and never had a problem with it and I still have that brush. Remember, the water at sea is usually different than the water in port, so perhaps that is the difference, however, I would think the at sea water is more pure as it is distilled. Maybe it's something like fluoride. I never asked if they added fluoride to the ship's water and I have no idea whether they use it in your pier side supply or not, but it is a mineral afterall and it would be interesting to find out what the difference might be.

 

[MinorDamage]

When and if you transfer to a small boy wet shaving gets a little more complicated. Adjusting for the pitch, roll and yaw makes for a fun morning.

Funny. That was going to be my response. As a former DDG DCA, it gets to rocking a bit, but they are still Cadillacs compared to CGs and FFGs.

Josh

 

[Jacob.Allison]

Funny. That was going to be my response. As a former DDG DCA, it gets to rocking a bit, but they are still Cadillacs compared to CGs and FFGs.

Josh

Yikes, well, I'm glad I wasn't on a small boy. (Why would a CG be worse than a DDG though? They're quite a bit bigger.) Because I'm on a carrier I don't really have any stories to tell! It's pretty much just get up, shave, go to work. Now, I did get LOTS of questions and weird looks, and i think I might have converted at least 1 person to wet-shaving.

Which cream -- Taylor's Sandlewood shaving cream. I purchased this off of Amazon (Best part about a carrier, we get mail FASTER while we're underway than we do in port)
Shave kit -- Feather DE Razor with feather blades, a Tweezerman brush, and a Van Der Hagen bowl. I use Old Spice aftershave.

I'm thinking about upgrading the brush for this next cruise.

As for our water supply -- as a nuclear powered carrier we make a LOT of water, and the potable water that is used for drinking water/sinks/etc is also further refined. It comes out of the desalinization plant as just plain water, nothing it it, but then our water plant adds some minerals and other things to keep it pure & to add taste. (If you get your water bottle filled from a guy that works down there, it tastes AMAZING.) That said, by the time it moves through all the pipes to wherever you are it can be a bit weird. I try to counter this by using the same sink every day.

 

[MinorDamage]

The DDG are wider and have less weight up high in the ship. They are almost 11 feet wider than a CG at their beamiest if I remember correctly.

Josh

 

[Jacob.Allison]

The DDG are wider and have less weight up high in the ship. They are almost 11 feet wider than a CG at their beamiest if I remember correctly.

Josh

Well, that makes sense then!

 

[FL shaver]

Which cream -- Taylor's Sandlewood shaving cream. I purchased this off of Amazon (Best part about a carrier, we get mail FASTER while we're underway than we do in port).

Thanks for replying. I wondered if you had to wait to get back to port to receive items.