NORFOLK
Kendyl Count joined the San Antonio at a Mississippi shipyard 3½ years ago when the Navy’s newest amphibious ship was under construction.
The 22-year-old petty officer assumed being on a new ship would be like owning a new car, with extra comforts and little maintenance. Instead, she and the rest of the crew worked aboard an unfinished vessel riddled with problems. They spent long days and nights preparing the San Antonio, a $1.8 billion showcase for the Navy’s next generation of troop carriers, for inspections it would eventually fail.
“Things were difficult,” said Count, taking a break last week in the ship’s galley from her job as a damage control specialist. “We all sucked it up.”
After failing to leave port during a March inspection, the San Antonio passed a second-chance Navy trial the week after Thanksgiving. The ship – $840 million over budget and plagued by design and construction flaws – has finally been cleared for deployment and is preparing for an overseas tour next year.
The San Antonio underwent a $39 million overhaul at local shipyard BAE Systems from April to July. Repairs cost $3 million more than expected and took two weeks longer.
Work included an overhaul of the ship’s computer network, the centerpiece of an automated vessel designed to be operated by a smaller crew. The original electronic nerve system had faulty wiring, broken hardware and unstable software.
The computer network was upgraded a few years before schedule, said Capt. Bill Galinis, the Navy’s program manager for the San Antonio class of ships, known as amphibious transport docks.
The San Antonio also received new a flight deck, fixes to the radio linking pilots and flight controllers, and many safety-related repairs, said Galinis, who noted that some of the redesigns will be incorporated into later ships in its LPD-17 class.
“We’ve learned an awful lot,” he said.
Cmdr. Ethan Mitchell, the San Antonio’s chief engineer, said the ship has been a challenge for his sailors to maintain. “The transition from lab to reality was a lot more difficult than most people imagined,” he said.
Mitchell compared the problems to the difference between fixing 1970 and a 2007 versions of a Dodge Charger. Sailors need at least a working knowledge of electronics and mechanics.
The Navy acknowledged that the crew will need more expertise to maintain the technology-laden hull. “This training is inadequate,” Galinis said, adding that the Navy will try to enhance it next year.
The San Antonio cuts a unique profile on the Norfolk waterfront, with sharp-angled and boxy bulkheads rising from its deck. The amphibious ship is designed to carry up to 700 Marines, their vehicles and aircraft.
Inside, the ship offers more space for troops. Bunks are designed to allow sailors to sit up and read or use a laptop. Passageways are wider and higher.
Cmdr. Kurt Kastner, who became skipper of the San Antonio in July, has urged the crew to focus on the missions ahead. “It’s a challenging time for this ship,” he said, but added: “I’m surrounded by sailors that really care.”
The goal of the new technology is to automate the next generation of Navy ships and allow vessels to operate with smaller crews. The San Antonio has 360 sailors, 60 fewer than the older troop transports carried.
Sailors have noticed the difference: They’re usually busy.
“As long as you’re awake, you have something to do,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Lucien Gauthier, who arrived on the San Antonio, his first ship, in August 2006.
Gauthier, a 25-year-old from Brevard, N.C., said the crew has kept a positive attitude through the failed trials and chronic problems. He called the experience “a painful way to learn.”
“It forced us to learn how to adapt.” he said. “Are we supposed to learn how to deal with this off the coast of Virginia, or are we supposed to learn how to deal with this off the coast of Somalia?”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Ricky Farnsworth is a member of the original crew, known as a plank owner.
The crew drew closer as it struggled to prepare the ship for inspections and to become a working member of the fleet, said Farnsworth, a 32-year-old from Las Vegas.
“People didn’t walk around the ship thinking we failed,” he said. “We knew we put in the hours. We were working.”
Farnsworth volunteered and spent hours cleaning up from broken pipes and construction work – duties well outside his role as a human resources clerk.
He consoled himself by imagining worse jobs:
“I wasn’t in the middle of Afghanistan or Iraq. What do I have to complain about?”
Louis Hansen, (757) 446-2322, louis.hansen@pilotonline.com
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Senior Naval Enlisted/Officers/Federal Auditors Needed.
The only way to ensure ships are repaired and built by design and on budget is to monitor and evaluate the progress. This would be an easy task if one entity built/repaired our ships, trust me thsi sis not the case. For example one yard can be supported by as many as 100 different contractors. This often creates problems from accountability to security. Our Sailors are busy training and preparing for operations with too few available to monitor /QA the work. We need to automate our progression system to allow mangers and supervisors to keep accurate up to date status of the jobs as the progress. So many times I see 4 or 5 contractors trying to work in the same location. This normally leads to one job working and 4 being rescheduled. We should be able to track jobs via computer as to what has and has not been accomplished. We need our Chiefs and Division officers and shipyard management looking for mistakes and ways to improve. Too many managers are paper pushers, they need to make it to the deck plates a bit more often. We need to hold these contractors accountable. Rework should not mean being paid twice. Fines should be imposed for poor quality and rewards for complet
Anyone who's ever had the
Anyone who's ever had the misfortune of serving on a ship that came out of that yard knows they're incapable of producing a quality product. Have they ever built a ship that was either on time, under budget, or worked as expected?
The last ship I served on came from Avondale (now Northrop Grumman), and I wouldn't trust them to assemble a kid's bicycle for Christmas.
San Antonio sailors, you've got your work cut out for you. You'll be finding little gems for years down the road, and every time you pull into a "real" shipyard for repairs, the workers are going to wonder how on earth the shoddy workmanship from Avondale ever made it out of the drydock.
Our tax dollars at work.....