KEY POINTS:
It's an occupational drinking culture that dates back to the days of rum rations.
But after several high-profile incidents - including the needless death of 23-year-old Jasmine Bastion a year ago - Navy attitudes are changing, with tough new measures, including mandatory breath testing, to deal with Devonport's drunken sailors.
Old salts are likely to choke on their rum tots at the Navy's sea change in thinking, but, for many locals, like Joy Mace, the clean-up is long overdue.
Mace didn't know Bastion, but a memorial to the young naval able chef outside her Devonport bed and breakfast is a constant reminder of everything that was wrong with the Navy's binge-drinking culture.
It was in the early hours of March 3 last year when Bastion's life came to a shuddering halt when the powerful RX7 she was a passenger in went out of control and hit a concrete wall on Devonport's Queens Parade.
David Brian Warren, a 19-year-old naval rating, had been behind the wheel and barely received a scratch while two other Navy boys were lucky to survive after being cut from the wreck.
Police were unable to determine how fast Warren had been going, but believed it was well over the legal speed limit of 50km/h.
Earlier that evening Bastion, Warren and the others in the vehicle had been enjoying a few cheap drinks at the Devonport naval base 800m from the crash scene.
Around 10pm the group headed to Wild Bill's, a popular Navy watering hole on Victoria Rd where they had more drinks and decided on their next move.
Within 30 seconds of getting behind the wheel, Warren had smashed his car into a concrete wall, fatally injuring Bastion.
A police officer who attended the crash remarked later: "Such a stupid mistake. The girl's dead, that boy's blighted his life forever. He's killed someone, probably ruined his career."
Mace remembers the crash well and the trauma Bastion's family went through.
She told the Herald on Sunday anything that changed the drinking culture among the 1800 Navy personnel based at Devonport was welcome.
"I think the Navy has indeed taken steps, especially with the new recruits. It's always difficult once they are outside the gate, but at least the Navy are being proactive," she said.
"If I see any of the these Navy boys acting up, I chase them down to the base to get their number plate - so they should be warned, there are people like me keeping a close eye on them."
Police said alcohol was a factor in an alleged rape at the base in November. Two junior ratings each faced three charges, including rape and sexual violation.
Several measures, some unpopular, have been introduced by the Navy in the past 18 months to tidy up its tattered image.
Naval personnel are breath-tested when they leave base of an evening, the old junior mess has been replaced with an RSA-style bar and lounge, shore patrols monitor Queens Parade and naval ratings are warned they face hefty fines, loss of privileges and leave or military detention if they misbehave.
Devonport Community Board chairman Mike Cohen welcomes the measures but says more needs to be done. He wants an extension to an existing liquor ban to include the Devonport CBD and adjacent Windsor Reserve and is pushing for measures such as chicanes to slow traffic and deter boy racers in the main street.
"The sad death of the young cadet brought things to a head last year. But these issues have been building up over the past 15 years.
"But that said, it's not just a drinking culture among the Navy, but a drinking culture with our youth. These kids think the only way they can have a good time is by getting boozed out of their minds," Cohen said.
North Shore police commander Inspector Les Paterson told the Herald on Sunday he was in no doubt the Navy had improved its act. Previously, police would have made two to three arrests a week for drunken and disorderly offences, but now there was lucky to be one arrest a month.
It was certainly a far cry from the 1980s when Navy personnel were given a tot of over-proof rum at lunchtime and then expected to go about their duties as normal.
Police had provided breath-testing equipment for the Navy and worked closely over the introduction of education programmes for naval staff.
"There is an awareness of the work we have done on base, and, while things are never going to be perfect, we're certainly making the right sort of progress," said Paterson. "It's not like the days when a good night out for the Navy boys was going out and getting into a punch-up with the Team Policing Unit."
Navy spokesman Commander Dean McDougall said drug and alcohol education had become an integral part of training for new recruits. That coupled with random breath testing, the end of cheap booze and a new alcohol culture on base had created a positive environment embraced by naval ratings, he said.
But he insisted the changes weren't triggered by Bastion's death.
"We don't believe things were going wrong. We just decided the culture wasn't right and that we wanted to change it so we were quite proactive in that," McDougall said.
He said blaming the Navy for all alcohol-related issues in Devonport was "unfair" because problem drinking affected all of society.
