The new aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford has all sorts of high-tech gear equipped for 21st century naval warfare. But there is one thing that male sailors will notice is no longer available: Urinals.
For the first time, every bathroom on the Ford — known throughout military circles as a head — is designed to be “gender-neutral,” meaning all of the urinals have been replaced with flush toilets and stalls, Navy officials say.
The vast majority of the 5,000-plus sailors who will deploy aboard the carrier Ford are men, as women account for only about 18 percent of sailors in the Navy.
Bathroom design experts say water closets with seated toilets are less sanitary and take up far more space than wall-mounted urinals.
Nevertheless, the Navy says there are advantages to eliminating urinals.
It will allow the Navy to quickly and efficiently change a head’s assigned gender, so depending on the ship’s demographics at the time, berthing areas can be switched between male and female to accommodate the crew’s needs.
“This is designed to give the ship flexibility because there aren’t any berthing areas that are dedicated to one sex or the other,” Operations Specialist 1st Class Kaylea Motsenbocker told Navy Times recently.
Every head on the Ford is being integrated into a berthing, she said.
As such, the Navy claims that gender-neutral heads will make living aboard the Ford more convenient for sailors.
Every berthing area on the ship has a head attached to it, and some heads service multiple berthing areas, giving sailors more privacy.
“So if this space was needed for males, we could shift the females to other berthing areas and make this all male without any modification being necessary,” Motsenbocker said.
It’s a decision that comes as a surprise to many professionals who design restrooms.
“[A toilet is] by far a less clean environment than a urinal. By far,” said Chuck Kaufman, president of the Public Restroom Company, an organization that specializes in designing bathrooms.
For men, traditional seated toilets are farther away, making them harder targets to accurately focus on.
Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman.
He says that when men are obligated to pee in water closets, urine tends to build up on the floor, leaving an abysmal stench.
“A urinal is a target,” said Kaufman. “What is a problem is [with a water closet] you have a very big target and we can’t aim very quickly.”
The only way to ensure men accurately aim into a toilet bowl is to force men to sit down, which is unlikely to happen, said Kaufman.
Moreover, sitting down to pee makes trips to the bathroom take longer.
Kaufman estimates that the average trip to the urinal takes a little under a minute. Meanwhile, peeing at a sit-down toilet takes twice as long, he said.
Whatever convenience that is gained by being able to morph men’s rooms into women’s rooms would also be lost in the amount of space that water closets, and the stalls around them, take up, he said.
When he is designing a bathroom, Kaufman says he is required to allot around 1,500 square inches of space for a urinal. A toilet needs more than 3,300 square inches.
For a ship like the Ford, which cost upwards of $13 billion, every inch of space matters tremendously.
“Why would you want the ship to be bigger just for fixtures?” said Kaufman. “You can get twice as many urinals as water closets.”
For now, the Ford will be the only Navy ship in the fleet that is entirely outfitted with gender-neutral bathrooms, said Bill Couch, a Naval Sea Systems Command spokesperson.
Regardless, urinals on aircraft carriers may be a thing of the past.
"""Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman."""" Did we fund this study??...YOU can't hit a minimum 12"bowl of water with your pee shooter at 18/24" inches....... U got issues
"""Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman."""" Did we fund this study??...YOU can't hit a minimum 12"bowl of water with your pee shooter at 18/24" inches....... U got issues
When was the last time you took a piss in 45 foot seas?
the damn carrier has all sorts of problems. Generators, catapults, and now this silly crap. Liberals have done what the Japanese, Nazis and commie bastards could not do. Neuter the US Navy.
the damn carrier has all sorts of problems. Generators, catapults, and now this silly crap. Liberals have done what the Japanese, Nazis and commie bastards could not do. Neuter the US Navy.
Yeah, you'd think a first in class, multi-billion dollar ship would have zero problems. Thanks for another clueless post.
The Ford's problems are nothing a lot of the old guard in Naval Aviation told them would happen. The urinal issue albeit funny but irrelevant aside, the catapult/arresting gear issues go FAR beyond "problems". Just like the A-12, F-35, LCS, etc, the Navy was sold a bill of goods by the builders on future technology that just isn't "there" yet. For one, the catapult recovery time is way too slow, thereby severely curtailing launch sequences. Further, any kind of combat damage is going to take a lot more than lagging and duct tape to fix as steam catapults get fixed with. The bottom line is the Navy went with less man power (which also means less redundancy for repair/damage control parties and whatever else combat might bring)because it's cheaper and will EVENTUALLY require less maintenance. It's a huge mess with no short term fix in sight. Same with the F-35, overweight, underpowered, a logistics nightmare due among other things the size of their engines are so big they can't be brought aboard by existing methods), a maneuvering slob, not to mention single engine. The LCS, another example of the tail wagging the dog. With this "gem" the Navy said "we need a ship with a crew no larger than X", so they built a ship around a crew so what you have is a ship with very limited range and a narrow combat capability window. The new Frigate (Zumwalt class, now there's a hint with the name 'Zumwalt) is shaping up to be another mess, but the Navy has bigger fish to fry apparently, namely urinals, anti-homo sensitivity training and paying for add/cut-a-dicktomy. But hey, just as long as I get my pension...
"""Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman."""" Did we fund this study??...YOU can't hit a minimum 12"bowl of water with your pee shooter at 18/24" inches....... U got issues
When was the last time you took a piss in 45 foot seas?
"""Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman."""" Did we fund this study??...YOU can't hit a minimum 12"bowl of water with your pee shooter at 18/24" inches....... U got issues
When was the last time you took a piss in 45 foot seas?
Good point. I think I'll sit down to think it over....
Besides, hitting the target isn't the problem even on flat land. It's the splash factor. Sitting down pretty much eliminates that. Let's see now..... one toilet and one urinal, or just one toilet? Seems one comes out ahead on eliminating the urinal, space-wise. Might require a slight increase in number of toilets, however - so I'd say it evens out, pretty much. The sanitation thing has validity. If you can train a dog to sit......
Unless there is some heavy chit going on, 1 minute vs 2 doesn't seem to be much of a factor to me, but then I've never served.
IIRC the sub I served on thirty five years ago didn't have any urinals, though it had nothing to do with gender neutrality. Somehow we managed to get the mission done.
I lived in newer Air Force barracks back in the 1950's that had one "normal" head between every two 2-man rooms. No big deal. Better than the old open bay barracks that I also shared.
Unless they abide by the "if its brown, flush it down....if its yellow, let it mellow".
Salt water flush...
It's a Nuke. Making fresh water is no problem. I admit I don't know which they use, however.
Making fresh water is a problem on every ship. Yes, less on a nuke, but water management was always an issue.
I never had a problem filling potable water tanks. Sure there were times we had to conserve water meaning no 20 minute showers Etc due to maintenance be preformed or the part of the world and water temps. But it was never ever a problem. R/O water......
Midnight, a dozen Naval Avaitors in a bar, some Marines look over and say, "The Ford, you guys are the ones who have to squat to piss, Guys, lets buy the ladies a round."
As a former A-div mechanic on a nuclear submarine, plumbing is something I know a little bit about.
First off, why would you ever run a machine, to make fresh water, to flush a turd, when you are going to pump/blow it right straight back out to sea? I don't know about carriers but the submarines I was on used salt water flush. We had one evaporater and one still (distilling plant). As long as things were running fine fresh water was not a problem. But let one or the other go down (especially the still), and we would be going into fresh water conservation mode pretty quick.
Space on all Navy ships, but especially submarines is at a premium. If a choice has to be made about upgrading equipment or giving the crew more space, the crew always loses out. I bet 25% of the racks (beds) on a submarine had some kind of equipment partially protruding into the space. Urinals do take up less room, need less maintenance, and are faster. When you are doing watch turnover you have 1/3 of the crew getting up, eating and going on watch, where 1/3 of the crew is getting relieved, eating, and coming off watch. That is a lot of bathroom usage crammed into a really short time. A couple of guys camped out on the pot can really gum up the works.
Midnight, a dozen Naval Avaitors in a bar, some Marines look over and say, "The Ford, you guys are the ones who have to squat to piss, Guys, lets buy the ladies a round."
Ok, so the question needs to be asked...who has a urinal in their house.
I dearly wish I did, especially at a height useable for my 3 and 7 year old!
They make them for young kids. My neighbor has one.
We have one for the youngest and he uses that regularly. But it is a piss and dump thing that I'd rather have a flush handle on.
Try a plumbing supply house. They do make them, i think, for plumbed in install. If you have seen them for public restrooms, you could install one for private use. (Neighbor's version is the hang and pour version.)
My first Lab did that. JUST ONCE. As a 6 mo old pup, he trotted to the peak of a snow pile with his hind legs right on top, front legs lower and a stiff wind at his tail, with predictable results.
He was a smart dog... with piss dripping off his jaw. But only once.
Ok, so the question needs to be asked...who has a urinal in their house.
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You are missing the point which is, adding females for the purposes of politics and nothing to do with combat efficiency, which has been all but subsumed to social engineering.
NO, NO, NO! Not on the deck! OFF the deck gives one a two-tone lawn. (So I am - ahem- told) Or is that what you meant? And if you are speaking of a boat/ship, I'm sure the officers would frown on anyone peeing on the deck. Or did you mis-spell "deck"? Some of these posts are so confusing....
las - you need a deck - no guy should have a shop without a deck just outside the double door. Once you have a deck, you soon will figure it out - confusion gone. Standing on the deck is one thing, but anyone who leaks on the deck is in trouble - the foliage below is the target - yes, two or three toned target. And, used spell-check - deck is "deck".
Ford has a vacuum system that's a little different than most ships in that it uses saltwater instead of fresh water. Vacuum systems use a lot less water per flush which has several benefits.
Like most of the other systems, Ford's sewage system is not without it's problems, and it's far from "gender-neutral." A single tampon flushed down the crapper can, and has, brought the entire system to a screeching halt.
It will allow the Navy to quickly and efficiently change a head’s assigned gender, so depending on the ship’s demographics at the time, berthing areas can be switched between male and female to accommodate the crew’s needs.
So if this space was needed for males, we could shift the females to other berthing areas and make this all male without any modification being necessary,” Motsenbocker said.
But I didn't think if mattered if a man wanted to walk in and take a pizz next to some girls. Aren't they supposed to just get over their "uncomfortableness"?? But now we need gender specific heads? So which is it libtards?!?I guess things like this are only used to attack a "patriarchial culture."
"""Thus, men who use a water closet are more likely to miss the bowl and hit the floor, says Kaufman."""" Did we fund this study??...YOU can't hit a minimum 12"bowl of water with your pee shooter at 18/24" inches....... U got issues
When was the last time you took a piss in 45 foot seas?
Good point. I think I'll sit down to think it over!
Unless there is some heavy chit going on, 1 minute vs 2 doesn't seem to be much of a factor to me, but then I've never served.
The sailors and sailorettes are going to be screwing like minks below decks in their new unisex quarters. Sad to see the Navy deteriorate in this manner, as the Feminists take our country over.
Ford has a vacuum system that's a little different than most ships in that it uses saltwater instead of fresh water. Vacuum systems use a lot less water per flush which has several benefits.
I don't know what ships you sail on but they are all salt water flush except for the ones in the brig which is fresh water so the prisoners can't make themselves sick drinking salt water.
This is a non-issue people. When is the last time anyone has seen a urinal on a Navy ship? Exactly because they aren't and haven't been there. They started removing urinals off ships back around 2001. They stink so they put the pucks in there which clogged the plumbing along with the dip and other trash Sailors threw in them. They also wouldn't work with any VCHT system which all current ships are built with. Urinal-less is not exclusive to the Ford, it is and has been fleet wide.
The medium dry dock I was on, built in the early 40's and originally deployed at Ulithi, had a long trough as a urinal. It was about 8 feet long and had a constant flow of salt water. I changed the spray pipe on that twice and the discharge once. Simple thing, it just went over the side. But you had to go in the bilge tank to change it. Since that bilge was so large it literally took longer to vent it than to change the pipe. The drain never got clogged with debris, Mostly accumulated salt. The spray pipe we had to make. Just a 1/2" pipe with a bunch of holes drilled in a line.
I did see a Machinist Mate take an azz wiping for throwing cigarette butts in it. The single Boatswain Mate that cleaned all of birthing didn't care for taking butts out of the urinal. That Boatswain Mate, big and ugly, fit the nickname " Deck Ape".
The 637 class submarine I was on didn't have a chit pump, some of the newer boats did. Once the sanitary tank started getting full you isolated it, pressurized it with air, and opened a valve to sea to blow the tank over the side. One time we had a new nub that didn't want to go to sea, so he threw a pair of underwear down the chitter. Of course it got stuck in the valve. Which required divers going over the side to put a flange on the hull over the valve, a Subsafe work package to pull the valve (one of my first Subsafe packages as a new QA) and rebuild it, and our underway was delayed a day or two. IDK what that nub was thinking. The underwear he chunked in it was boot camp underwear with his name stenciled on them. He was gone off the boat so fast I never knew what ended up happening to him. Anyways, I can just imagine the problems caused by feminine products.
Ford has a vacuum system that's a little different than most ships in that it uses saltwater instead of fresh water. Vacuum systems use a lot less water per flush which has several benefits.
I don't know what ships you sail on but they are all salt water flush except for the ones in the brig which is fresh water so the prisoners can't make themselves sick drinking salt water.
Two of the ships I was on had standard, saltwater flush gravity systems. Everything leaked, stunk and was rusty and falling apart. The other 5 had vacuum systems that had slight differences, but they all were designed to use fresh water as the flushing medium. They can be aligned to saltwater if needed, but that rarely happens these days. The new DDG's even use fresh water in the firemain.
