The expected start of a key milestone for the Navy, its first "green" vessel, an all-electric hybrid amphibious assault ship, has slipped by one month as San Diego crews continue to repair its main reduction gear.
Naval Surface Forces officials expect to complete the fixes to the Wasp-class Makin Island 'in mid-September,' Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello, a command spokesman in Coronado, tells the Navy Times.
The problem surfaced in early August, when the crew members doing maintenance discovered damage to the turning gear of the ship's main reduction gear, Servello said. The turning gear 'is completely independent of the hybrid drive,' he added.
Members of ship's company and teams from the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center in San Diego are doing the repairs aboard the ship, which Navy officials decided to keep pierside at its home at Naval Base San Diego until the work is completed, Servello told Navy Times.
Once repairs are finished, the Navy will determine when to proceed to the final contract trials, which are designed to ensure there are no defects or other work not completed or corrected. Such trials usually are done six months after the Navy accepts a ship from the builder.
According to the Navy Times, Makin Island, which was built by Northrop Grumman in April 2009 and commissioned in October 2009, was scheduled to get underway in mid-August for the final contract trials, which are done by the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey. 'They are in the process of being rescheduled,' Servello told Navy Times. 'There is no new date.'
The turning gear is an additional gear used to boost efficiency of a ship's main reduction gear by warming it up to help speed up or cooling it down to slow down the ship, he said. It is usually engaged when the ship is getting underway or returning to port. The ships' first actual deployment, sometime next year, is not expected to be delayed.
