PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Shipbuilder Bath Iron Works is going to replace one of the massive turbines on the future USS Monsoor because its blades were damaged during sea trials, but the unexpected repair won’t delay the ship’s arrival in California by year’s end, the Navy said Thursday.
Before it can depart from Maine, one of the two Rolls Royce gas turbines that help produce electricity to power the ship and systems must be replaced.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the Navy decided to remove the engine in its entirety to ensure a successful and safe transit of the ship to her San Diego homeport,” said Colleen O’Rourke, spokeswoman for the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C.
The turbine is so large that a special rail system will be used to remove the turbine and install a new one at the shipyard in Bath, 35 miles from Portland.
Bath Iron Works had no comment Thursday.
The stealthy destroyer, named for a Navy SEAL who threw himself on a grenade to save comrades, is due to be commissioned in January in Coronado, California.
Its turbines were run to full power during acceptance trials in the North Atlantic, and the damage wasn’t discovered during a post-cleaning inspection in February, two months before the Navy conditionally accepted delivery of the warship, O’Rourke said.
The 610-foot destroyer uses two main turbines similar to ones used on Boeing 777 jetliners to produce electricity that powers the ship and its sophisticated systems. The ship generates 78 megawatts of power, enough power to power a small- to medium-size city.
What exactly caused the damage is unclear.
There are no problems with the same turbines used in the first-in-class ship, the USS Zumwalt, and several speedy littoral combat ships, the Navy said.
The Zumwalt and Monsoor are the first and second in a class of three of the stealthy destroyers. The third, the Lyndon B. Johnson, is under construction in Bath.
The ships are the largest and costliest destroyers built for the Navy, weighing in at 15,000 tons. They feature an angular shape to minimize its radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors.
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