I know what you mean.
There is something that is unique about the smell of a ship. You could stick me in a box, blindfold me, fly me halfway around the world, put the box inside a ship and open the box, and without hesitation, I could easily tell I was on a ship.
It is a weird smell...part iron, part paint, part oil, part ocean, and even...part human.
The USS Kitty Hawk had that unique smell, as the last oil-fired carrier in service, so much so that she was known to her crew as the “USS S****y Kitty”.
;^)