Boats is a term used when addressing the senior Boatswain's Mate, normally a BMC, or chief boatswain’s mate. He is the guy who makes sure all of the other boatswains keep the ship looking nice and sailing smooth. When you talk to somebody in the Navy and they say all they did was chip paint, paint, and stand watch, they were a boatswain’s mate. That is all these poor guys end up doing.

Boatswain's mates train, direct, and supervise personnel in ship's maintenance duties in all activities relating to marlinspike, deck, boat seamanship, painting, upkeep of ship's external structure, rigging, deck equipment, and boats. Boatswain's Mates take charge of working parties; perform seamanship tasks; act as petty officer-in-charge of picketboats, self-propelled barges, tugs, and other yard and district craft. They maintain discipline as master-at-arms and police petty officers. They serve in, or take charge of, guncrews or damage control parties. BM's also operate and maintain equipment used in loading and unloading cargo, ammunition, fuel, and general stores.

Boatswain's mates enjoy a normal path of advancement to Chief Warrant Officer and Limited Duty Officer. Candidates must have normal color perception, and no speech impediment. Candidates needn't meet any special citizenship or security requirements.

Boatswain's mates also summon the crew to work by a whistle known as a boatswain's call or boatswain's pipe. On the ancient row-galleys, the boatswain used his pipe to "call the stroke.”Later because its shrill tune could be heard above most of the activity on board, it was used to signal various happenings such as knock-off and the boarding of officials. So essential was this signaling device to the well-being of the ship, which it became a badge of office and honor in the British and American Navies. The first captain we had on the Scott had our duty boatswain use his whistle for every announcement. The second captain stopped this practice. If the person using the whistle knows how to use it, then it sounds fine, otherwise it is horrible sounding.

But the head guy you always seem to end up calling him Boats. He always seems to be moving at flank speed and never has a clean uniform. Most of the BMC’s you run into are very senior and have been all over the place. They have some of the wildest sea stories you ever want to hear. There is one story about a BMCS (E8) who was boats on the USS Wisconsin during the Gulf War.

The story goes the boats on the Whiskey, liked his ship to be one shade of Haze grey. To do this you need a good deal of people painting to keep the color the same. One time during the war an Iraqi gunboat ran at the Wisconsin and shot her with a bunch of 20MM rounds. This of course did nothing but chip paint and make the boats mad. He then had the deck division paint the entire ship top to bottom, bow to stern, 24/7 until they were done. Nice story if it is true or not.