When Cmdr. Roger Meyer led the attack submarine Miami on a successful five-month deployment in 2010, he couldn’t have known he’d be the last commanding officer to take the boat on patrol. But a May 2012 fire set by a worker at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, effectively ended the Miami’s service life. Despite a 10-hour effort to battle the blaze, led by Meyer, it would’ve cost $450 million to repair the sub — an expenditure that the Navy decided in August wasn’t worth it. Instead of 10 more years of service, five more deployments and a handful more…
Browsing: Shipyard
While Navy officials deal with the latest collision, the warship struck in the previous one is headed home. Destroyer Porter passed through the Suez Canal on Oct. 12 on its way home to Norfolk, Va. The impact from its August collision with a supertanker crumpled the ship’s starboard side just in front of the superstructure. The impact smashed the starboard break, a passageway on the weatherdecks, tore open a hole above the waterline and ruptured internal pipes and cables. Seen from the bridge, it appeared as though the supertanker Otowasan’s bow bit off a chunk of the destroyer’s side. That…
A euphemism is “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant,” according to Merriam-Webster. An example might be couching a near-$1 billion increase in the cost of the most expensive ship ever in the most innocuous terms possible. My colleague Chris Cavas has a fine explainer story in the print version of this week’s Defense News on the soaring cost of CVN 78, the Gerald R. Ford. Chris notes that the Navy’s recently unveiled fiscal year 2013 budget request asks Congress for another $811 million atop a total price tag of…
The carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower is enjoying a noteworthy and productive post-availability period at sea. On July 2, Ike, operating off the Atlantic coast, was the scene of the first fully hands-free carrier landing as an F/A-18D modified to emulate the in-development X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System aircraft touched down under control of an onboard computer network linked to the plane. The aircraft was manned in case something went wrong, but the pilot kept his hands off the controls, the Navy told my colleague Joshua Stewart. See his story in the July 18 Navy Times. Four days later, the carrier…
The carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower is underway for sea trials following a nine-month maintenance availability at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va. Ike’s planned incremental availability began last summer and was supposed to be done in March. It was extended into June due to major pump overhaul and unexpected winter storms, according to the Navy. “Today we are absolutely ready to get back to sea,” said Capt. Marcus Hitchcock, Ike’s CO. “You can walk around and see the phenomenal changes around the ship.” Looks like someone is happy to be leaving the yards …
Twenty months in dry dock will end Saturday, May 21, when the carrier Theodore Roosevelt checks out of Dry Dock 11 at Newport News Shipbuilding (so nice to be able to use the simple name again, though we should note that the yard is a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries …) to a pierside location for the remainder of its 39-month refueling complex overhaul. The hull actually got wet again beginning on May 16, when the shipyard flooded the dock for testing. When the ship actually becomes fully afloat Saturday, the short trip to the pier will be TR’s first…
The executive officer of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt has narrated a new ship-produced video that has popped up on YouTube. The Navy’s probably happier with this video than some other recent ones. Narrated by the XO, Capt. Douglas Verissimo, and featuring his CO, Capt. William Hart, in a walk-on part, the video touts the carrier’s ongoing Refueling and Complex Overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding. [HTML1] Verissimo supplies dramatic narration over images of sailors wielding welding torches and needle guns, all working “to prepare for another 25 years of vital missions to come.” “Join us as we prepare to return to…
The cheering probably hasn’t stopped in Everett, Wash. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus was the bearer of glad tidings and Christmas cheer Dec. 9 when he announced that the carrier Nimitz, for the past nine years based in San Diego, would be homeported at Everett Naval Station after 12 months of scheduled maintenance at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in nearby Bremerton. A Dec. 10 editorial in the Seattle Times noted that “Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Rick Larsen, Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson … were buoyed by the good news for the economy and the compliment…
Yesterday, in-house heavy hitter Chris Cavas broke the news that both Lockheed Martin and Austal USA have been waiting for all year, and both companies can be happy with it. After a year-long wait, the Navy will ask congress for permission to award both companies 10 LCS hulls. The service’s leadership thinks competition between the companies has driven down the program’s costs. Cavas writes: Under the new proposal, the Navy would split its buy equally each year between Lockheed and Austal USA. Two ships would be awarded under the 2010 budget and two in 2011, with four ships year each…
The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard is getting ready for a roughly $41 million overhaul in dry dock. Sailors on board are doubtless ready for a nine-month spell shore-side and ready to revel in the luxuries of living on a berthing barge. The ship and its Marines returned earlier this year from a rough seven-month deployment to 5th and 7th fleets. Gidget Fuentes reported in April: Bonhomme Richard and two other amphibious ships of the San Diego-based ready group, dock landing ship Rushmore and transport dock Cleveland, spent more than four months in the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa…
