USS San Francisco Leaves Shipyard
USS San Francisco (SSN 711) finally left the Puget Sound this morning for her new homeport of San Diego, 3 1/2 years after arriving there for repairs following her early 2005 collision. BZ to all those involved in bringing her back to the active fleet!
For those who are interested, here's a compilation of all the posts I wrote about the SFO grounding in the year after it happened that I collected over at Ultraquiet No More.
posted by Bubblehead at 3:37 PM
22 Comments:
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4/08/2009 4:08 PM
I was TAD there in Engineering for the "get our shit together for steam plant testing, requals, and PORSE." They'd been in the yard so long, many of them had never seen a boat steam, and none had ever been submerged on SF, but they pulled the whole thing off relatively smoothly. Not totally without pain, but then, who could do that? It's the shipyard, after all.
Awesome bunch of guys, great Eng and CO. I'd be permanent crew with them anytime.
Good luck, guys.
4/08/2009 4:12 PM
3 1/2 years? How long did it take to build a 688?
-3383
4/08/2009 4:55 PM
Seems like several boats are change of home porting to SD. My hubs boat is after this deployment.
4/08/2009 6:12 PM
Just in time to make room for the Hartford to pull in & completely reweld the sail back on...
BZ San Fran on getting out of the yard! I had a friend onboard for the collision who ended up getting out due to PTSD afterwards.
4/08/2009 7:57 PM
It wasn't easy for anyone involved, but it's great to see her back out to sea, where she belongs.
4/08/2009 9:22 PM
Thanks for sharing your blog.
4/08/2009 10:20 PM
The main reason for the delay was that they had to wait for a new bow section, which came from the donor boat USS Honolulu. For a time it was not certain the idea would work. There were concerns that the hull may have been deformed; additionally it had never been done before. Ultimately a little ingenuity and a lot of money (don't know the number) made it work.
The SFO did things well in the yard. Imagine, for two years you do nothing but think about the future. Nothing. They did a great job of staying ready and out of trouble--no mean feat. They sent guys out in droves to ride other ships.
Glad to see the force +1.
4/09/2009 3:42 AM
Sure hope the saved the sail of the Honolulu for the Harford. :-)
Just joking here, but actually I think it is great that they can do that. I think the Missouri battleship had to have its bow replaced just after WWII when it ran aground. They used the bow from an unfinished battleship still on the building ways, but admittedly, transplanting a submarine bow is much more complicated.
Brava Zulu to the crew.
4/09/2009 6:45 AM
it was the wisconsin
4/09/2009 7:44 AM
Yes, it was Wisconsin. I had it wrong. http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/64d.htm
On 6 May 1956 the battleship collided with the destroyer Eaton (DD-510) in a heavy fog; Wisconsin (BB-64) put into Norfolk with extensive damage to her bow and, one week later, entered drydock at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. A novel expedient speeded her repairs and enabled the ship to carry out her scheduled midshipman training cruise that summer. A 120-ton, 68-foot long section of the bow of the uncompleted battle ship Kentucky (BB-66) was transported by barge, in one section, from New Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Corp., Newport News, Va., across Hampton Roads to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Working round-the clock, Wisconsin's ship's force and shipyard personnel completed the operation which grafted the new bow on the old battleship in a mere 16 days. On 28 June 1956, the ship was ready for sea.
Considerably quicker than the job on the SF
4/09/2009 9:33 AM
The cost of transplanting the bow was $134 million.
Here is the article in the local paper.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/Apr/07/uss-san-francisco-leaves-bremerton-after-long/
4/09/2009 10:12 AM
A situation vaguely similar to WISCONSIN happened to ARTHUR W. RADFORD when she hit the Saudi tanker in 1999. The bow of another SPRUANCE class (I believe it was COMTE DE GRASSE) was grafted on her and she served another 4 years. Of course, she had the special Advanced Enclosed Mast, which looked like a big middle finger to the world.
4/09/2009 10:30 AM
BRINKLEY BASS also got a new bow after she hit WADDELL in 1966. Was attached just the tiniest bit off center - obvious bow on. After the hit, she became known on the waterfront as the CRINKLY BASS.
4/09/2009 1:57 PM
Along with the 688 shuffle, these boats seem to each have their own individual quirks. Be interesting to hear if the Honofrisco has developed the SSN version of a facial tick.
4/09/2009 7:12 PM
Maybe its just me but I don't think I would want to sail on her. Call it a sailors superstition but sailing on SF would give me the willies. Then again, what do I know...I sailed on SSN 666 and felt safe as could be...
4/09/2009 7:32 PM
If I'm reading the story right, it sounds like they just swapped out everything forward of the pressure hull...MBTs, sonar access trunk, sonar sphere, etc.
So it doesn't seem like anything close to the entire forward compartment being replaced, which was my original expectation based on early reports of the torpedo tubes/pressure hull being fubar.
If it was more of a nose job than anything else, one fairing is as good as the next.
Am sort of left wondering how this took so long if my interpretation of the article is right and 'all' they did was swap out the MBTs, etc.
No small task...but 3.5 years worth? Would guess that a lot of that time was by way of doing a complete inspection of every system and collecting 'crash test' data that the Navy's never had before.
4/09/2009 7:45 PM
Seen pictures of the USS Blakely DD-150 with her bow blown off by a German torpedo in 1942. The bow of the stricken USS Taylor DD-95 was grafted onto the Blakeley. Over the years I think a lot of this stuff went on.
Re: Bad Luck and superstition. USS Squalus after salvage and repair was renamed Sailfish. One of the crew rechristened her "Squailfish. The skipper, Morton Mumma threatened to court martial any sailor referring to the boat as Squailfish. Ironically, Mumma "broke down" during depth charge attack and had to be relieved by the XO. She did have her difficulties...... A chief Engineman on the USS Stickleback SS-415 which was rammed and sunk off Pearl Harbor in 1958 by USS silverstein was a former wartime Sailfish sailor. BTW, no one lost on Stickleback collision and sinking.
Keep a zero bubble.........
DBFTMC(SS)USNRET
4/09/2009 9:05 PM
The actual bow replacement (all forward of the pressure hull) didn't actually take that long. Drydocked Dec 2006 and undocked October 2008, so just shy of 2 years.
The 3 1/2 years is from the time the SF arrived in Bremerton (Sept. 2005). She sat pierside for a year before even entering the shipyard!
4/10/2009 9:08 AM
I was on the Cable when this happened, and my division (R1) pretty involved in most of the work before the ship (boat?) left Guam. It was a sad day when they pulled in. I'm sure there's very few crewmembers from then still on the boat right now, but I'm glad that the SanFran is back.
4/17/2009 8:34 AM
Very helpful piece of writing, much thanks for the article.
10/27/2011 2:43 AM
It can't work as a matter of fact, that is what I consider.
9/20/2012 7:23 AM
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