Damage control

• rupture of a pipe or hull especially below the waterline and
• damage from grounding or hard berthing against a wharf.
• temporary fixing of bomb or explosive damage.

  Measures used

• locking off the damaged area from other ship's compartments;
• blocking the damaged area by wedging a box around a tear in the ship's hull,
• putting a band of thin sheet steel around a tear in a pipe, bound on by clamps.

• Thermal lance cutting around the rupture.
• Oxyacetylene welding or electric arc welding of plates over the rupture.
• Quick-drying cement is applied underwater over the rupture.

Notable contemporary examples

• USS Samuel B. Roberts: After an Iranian mine holed the frigate beneath the waterline in 1988, the crew fought fire and flooding that threatened to sink it.
• USS Princeton: After an Iraqi naval mine damaged the cruiser during the 1991 Gulf War, her crew fought fires and sealed cracks in the hull, then repaired electronic systems, bringing the Aegis combat system back on line within 2 hours.
• USS Cole: immediate measures to stop sinking after the ship was bombed in 2000.
• HMS Nottingham: measures to keep the ship afloat after, on 7 July 2002, the Nottingham'' ran aground on the submerged but well-charted Wolf Rock near Lord Howe Island.