My Visit to the Navy Open House 2010

*IMAGE-HEAVY POST*


At the invitation of Mindef and the Singapore Navy, I visited the Navy Open House with a group of bloggers on 20 May 2010 (as mentioned in this post). It was a Preview of the event, which was only opened to the public on 22 and 23 May 2010.


Since we were supposed to be at the arranged meetup place at 0930 hours, it meant that I have to be awake early in the morning (much earlier than usual, in fact.). The sleepy me (who stayed up late the night before, doing my research work) was about to wash up when my eye caught sight of something so beautiful and picturesque that I stopped for a few seconds to admire it. Then I headed back to the bedroom quickly and took out my DSLR camera to take a picture of it.

Marvellous view, isn't it?
(No editing was done to this picture, except to put the watermark.)

So anyway....
Upon arriving Changi Naval Base where the Navy Open House 2010 event was held at, I was greeted by several magnificent naval ships such as the frigates, missile corvette and the Mine countermeasure vessel. I must add that I was in awe with their large sizes and I felt so tiny! :p

While waiting for the naval display (which only took place twice a day).

I spotted a young boy carrying a soft toy of my favourite animal - PENGUIN!
I was trying my best to take photos of the soft toy, but failed to, I guess...
So just make do with these two shots. :p

Then the naval display began... Much to our delight!
(I love how my bun looks in this pic, btw - Not too neat nor messy.)

We were treated to a brilliant precision drill performance by the military police. It kinda brought back fond memories of the fancy drills that I did when I was in NPCC back then. LOL.

Check out the video footage:

Afterwhich, some baddies decided to gatecrash the Open House event and captured someone as their hostage! OMGosh!!! The naval divers from the Special Operations Task Force (SOTF) were then immediately activated for the rescue work, and we witnessed the whole process! Fret not, it was just a performance to demostrate the military strategy that is used in cases such as hostage rescuing. HEH! *Check out my video below, after these few pictures*

The SOTF attempting to shoot the 'bad guys'

Close-up picture. And can you see a few naval divers in the water??? :p

Check out the 2 videos below! :)

End of the wonderful performance by the NDU. Great acting, guys~
Indeed, 'Nothing Stands In Our Way'.

Can I be a member of this club too? ;)

It was time for a guided tour onboard the RSS Steadfast (which has received several awards in recognition for being the 'Best Ship' and attaining operational excellence). I was so excited to check out this formidable-class frigate - A warship that is equipped with state-of-the-art combat systems to deal with all sorts of naval warfare.

The hangar in the frigate

Now, why is there a hangar in the ship? It is actually for the naval's helicopter, the Sikorsky S-70B Seahawk. The Navy created the helicopter-frigate tag team (a milestone for the RSN's aim of being the 3rd Generation Navy), which enhances maritime security. The naval helicopter enhances the reach and range of the frigate by flying ahead to verify the presence of a possible contact. If the presence of the enemy warship is confirmed, a report will be sent to the crew in the Combat Information Centre (CIC).

The naval helicopters can even deploy a dipping solar into the sea in order to detect any enemy submarine. If there is one, the CIC will instruct the deployment of the torpedoes towards it. Awesome, right? This is like an arcade game, but only difference that this is real.

At the hangar

Some videos were shown to us before the tour.
And the dude in this picture is CPT Augustine Lim.

Whitehead Torpedo

The air temperature was 34°C !!! OMGosh!
The weather these days is so unpredictable and crazy. Don't you think so?

This is so 'old-school', comparing to the one in the picture above

BOO BOO moment for me
(see text below pic to find out why)

I thought that was a microphone at one glance so my first instinct was to pretend that I was talking into it when cameras were pointed at me. Then, Noel whispered to me that it was actually a little lamp. So nice of him to whisper to me, instead of correcting me out loud, right??? So now you know this thing is a lamp, not a microphone... Do not make this mistake when you participate in a guided tour during the next Navy Open House, ok? :p

Diana's acting so 'dua-pai' can... LOL!
She looked so happy calling her family to tell them how much she was enjoying herself at the Open House! ;p

CPT Augustine Lim decided to tell everyone that this is a light, not a microphone! *gasp*
Kidding... He was telling us about what the crew of 71 does onboard, and how the frigate leverages on a high level of automation and enhanced work processes.

Steep stairs to tackle

Kelvin was relating to some of us during lunch, that he had to bring our packed lunches into the ship and a helpful Navy personnel offered to help him. And he elaborated on how that guy carried the lunch boxes with his two hands and went down (or was it up? I forgot.) the stairs without having to hold on to the railings. Amazing!

This is one of the cabin rooms - comes with bunk beds, a desk and a compact toilet.
The toilet reminded me of those in the Japan's hotel rooms which I used when I visited Japan.

The bed curtains reminded me of those found in the train that I took for 9 hours from Singapore to Jerantut, for a group camping trip at Taman Negara years ago. It looked something like this, but of course the ship's cabins and beds are much cozier:

(Found this pic on the WWW)

Sidetrack: What did I do in Taman Negara with the other campers? LOTS! I did day trekking in the oldest tropical rainforest in the world, did a night jungle walk, saw the tongkat ali plant, crossed the world's longest tree top canopy walkway, explored and crawled through Gua Telinga (which is a dark cave full of bats and you need a torchlight when you are inside), held on to a rope while crossing a sinking muddy river bed, bathed in the river, fed fish in the river, went rapid shooting in a small wooden boat which got us all wet and had fun soaking ourselves at the waterfall. Last but not least, we slept under the stars, on the uneven soiled ground for three nights. It was a marvellous experience and it has been my wish to visit Taman Negara again.


So anyway, let's go back to the guided tour on the RSS Steadfast. We visited the Machinery Control Room (MCR) where we were showed another video. The MCR is very important since it monitors and controls all of the ship's platform systems. The lean engineering watch on deck is possible - All thanks to the ship being highly automated and being supported by the Ship Management System.

Picture taken by Kelvin, of us in the MCR

There's also this screen in the MCR to view the going-ons onboard.
So we were being watched!!! :p

Accidents can also happen onboard. Hence all navy personnel are trained in fire-fighting. But are they as good as the "Hot Female Fire Fighter Fighting a Hot Fire" or maybe, even better than her??? :p

The naval chef - The very important person onboard the ship.

Speciality dish of each of the 3 chefs onboard.
The chefs definitely have fine culinary skills since there's even an appreciation note for them.

WTH... Spotted this first!

The special packed lunch for us that we had at the Steadfast's dining hall. :)

After lunch, some of us had to go to the heads, and can you imagine there are only few common heads in a ship with 71 peeps? And before I forget to explain, the term 'heads' means restrooms, in Navy lingo. :p

I also went for a cruise on another vessel

And a cruise on a missile corvette it is! On RSS Valour! This ship is designed to deal with underwater threat posed by submarines. It is equipped with air and surface survillance radar, and even anti-submarine torpedoes and Harpoon missiles.

For safety purpose, we had to put on a life jacket. But if I happen to fall into the sea, I think I'd prefer a naval diver to rescue me. LOL! The life jacket added weight to the already-heavy Feliza, but no choice... Safety first! As they always say! :p

What is this??? See the next picture.

It's actually this.

This works like a set of normal binoculars, but looks like a lab microscope ;p

So... You wanna see Navy People At Work?

Here's them.

I witnessed the whole process of navigating the sea. And how every role onboard the ship is equally important. I was also given a short explanation of the stuff I saw in the radar screen.

The photo as seen below was taken with Clara, Chris (I dunno who he is but he happened to be in the photo. He looked cool when he was wearing the shades as seen in the video below) and Huay Wen (One of our hosts for this blogger's preview. Thanks alot for your wonderful hospitality and sharing of your knowledge and previous experience as a warfare officer).

How I wish the RSS Valour was taking me to Bali for a beach holiday. :(
But the 30-minute 'cruise to nowhere' was good enough since I have not been up on any naval ships before. :p

Here's a video I took while we were cruising on the RSS Valour.

Done with cruising and back on land to check out the exhibitions! :)

I also tried the simulation games where I fired weapons that are used on ships such as the General Purpose Machine Guns and Mistral missiles. The weapons were really heavy mann!!!

The Open House was really an eye opener for me. I learnt how the RSN ensures the security, survival and success of Singapore through defending our waters against sea-borne threats. The navy people whom I met and spoke with were all very friendly and some even shared with me their tales while out at sea. It was really a great experience and I urge you to visit the next Navy Open House. And hopefully, if I am going for the next Open House, I hope there is a tour in the submarine, or even better, a ride! Woohoo!! (^_^)

A Group Picture!

Beyond Horizons!