WASHINGTON — The littoral combat ship Fort Worth, sidelined in Singapore since an onboard engineering accident in January, will head to California under her own power for complete repairs, the US Navy announced today.
The ship will begin preparations for the transit, but the Fort Worth is not expected to leave Singapore before June, a Navy official said, adding the voyage to San Diego is expected to take four to six weeks.
Naval leaders have discussed a variety of options on how and where to repair the ship, out of operation since the combining gear which connects the ship's diesel engines to power shafts was wrecked in the incident. The diesels are used for cruising and other low-power operations, while powerful gas turbines are brought on line to boost top speeds to well above 40 knots.
The wrecked combining gear prevents the diesels from being engaged, meaning the ship will need to rely on its two Rolls-Royce MT-30 turbines to cross the Pacific. The transit is known to be exceptionally uneconomical, and an oiler will accompany the Fort Worth throughout the transoceanic passage, the US Pacific Fleet confirmed.
Up until the Jan. 12 accident, the Fort Worth had been carrying out a very successful deployment to Singapore, from where it had been operating since leaving San Diego in November 2014. Officials had grown used to touting the ships operations and improved availability, up significantly since the first, problem-plagued LCS deployment of the Freedom in 2013.
The Fort Worth's scheduled 16-month deployment had even been extended last winter, a sign of the ship's good performance and the usefulness of the LCS in the Western Pacific. Most aspects of the LCS forward-operating concept, including maintenance support and regular crew rotations, appeared to be functioning well.
But all that ended with the accident, which reportedly was due to improper procedures used on the machinery during pier side maintenance. An investigation into the accident has been completed, according to sources, and is making the rounds of higher authorities, but has yet to be signed off on or publically released.
The large number of official parties with a vested interest in the ship's operations was a factor in the lengthy time taken to decide on exactly how the repairs will proceed, the Navy has acknowledged.
"The decision was a collaborative one," said Lt. Clint Ramsden, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Habror. "Multiple stakeholders got a vote in this."
Those stakeholders, he said, included the US Seventh Fleet in the Western Pacific, the US Third Fleet in San Diego, the Pacific Fleet, the commander of surface forces and the LCS squadron in San Diego, and the chief of naval operations.
Options to repair the ship included having the work done in a Singapore shipyard, moving the LCS to Japan, or crossing the Pacific, either under her own power or carried aboard a heavy-lift ship.
The Fort Worth was already scheduled to undergo a lengthy overhaul at General Dynamics' National Steel and Shipbuilding Company shipyard in San Diego when she returned from the deployment, and NASSCO was reported in February to be lobbying to carry out the repairs on the West Coast, despite the difficulty of the trans-Pacific voyage.
Preparations for the voyage, Ramsden said, would include offloading the embarked aviation detachment and making the ship lighter for the transit.
Here is the full text of the Navy's press release:
USS Fort Worth slated for gas turbine transit, repair period in San Diego
The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) will make preparations to get underway from Singapore on its own power and transit to San Diego this summer. Fort Worth experienced an engineering casualty to the ship's combining gears January in Singapore that will require an extensive repair period.
Preparations are expected to take several months to complete necessary inspections, conduct lube oil system flushes and configure the engineering plant for safe operations.
The ship will use its gas turbine engines to transit from its current location in Singapore where it has been rotationally deployed since December 2014. The Pacific Ocean transit to homeport in San Diego is expected to take about six weeks with several underway replenishments and planned fueling stops along the way.
The decision to complete full repair of Fort Worth's combining gears in San Diego was based on several factors, including maintenance timelines, efficiency of repairs, and shipyard capabilities. Repairs will be conducted during Fort Worth's previously scheduled selected restricted availability with docking (SRA(d)) maintenance period, reducing the overall cost to the Navy. It has yet to be determined whether the SRA(d) duration will be extended due to the combining gear repair work.
As Fort Worth demonstrated through continuous operations in 2015, littoral combat ships provide an important capability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and planning continues for future LCS deployments.
