Haze Gray and Underway Patch

Submarines go to sea painted black, so when a surface sailor says haze gray and underway, he is talking about his own kind of Navy. The phrase means a surface ship at sea and working, not tied to a pier or riding at anchor. Haze gray is the color the fleet's combatants and auxiliaries wear, and it is there because it cuts the contrast against the horizon and makes a ship harder to pick out. Underway means exactly what the deck log says, no longer anchored, moored or made fast to anything. Put the two together and you have a point of pride for anyone who stood watches on a destroyer, a cruiser, an amphib, an oiler or a carrier.

The paint is spelled out in Navy practice down to the waterline. Haze gray is carried down the hull and superstructure to the black antifouling boot topping, and the hull numbers, ship's name and draft marks are done in light gray and ocean gray instead of white and black so nothing breaks up the silhouette. Stacks get a high-temperature haze gray, and even the boat canopies are painted in it. Hospital ships stay white, and so do some Coast Guard cutters. That is why the color reads as warship to anyone who has looked at the fleet from a pier.

This patch is a 4 inch circle with a silver gray merrowed border around a navy blue ring. HAZE GRAY arches across the top in white block letters between two white stars, UNDERWAY runs along the bottom, and AND sits just under the bow. In the center an aircraft carrier comes straight at you through blue water, its island standing up against a setting sun banded in red, orange and yellow, with jets parked along the flight deck. Small star and bar marks sit at either side of the waterline. It measures 4 inches wide by 4 inches tall with an iron-on backing.

Underway is where the training turns into the real thing. Watches rotate around the clock, general quarters can sound at any hour, and every system aboard has to work because there is no pier to lean on. Sailors say the phrase plainly, without much ceremony, because it describes the ordinary state of a working ship. A crew that has been haze gray and underway for a long deployment comes home with stories that mostly stay aboard. The saying belongs to every surface rating and every hull type, which is why so many sailors claim it.

It fits a ship's jacket or the vest that comes out at a reunion, and it sits well in a shadow box next to a ship's patch and a cruise book. It also makes a plain gift for a son or grandson reporting to his first ship. The iron-on backing goes down with a household iron, and a few stitches around the edge will keep it there for good. Any sailor who went to sea will know what it says.