Oops ... Boone loses rudder at sea

From Navy Times

January 11, 2007

Boone lost rudder at sea

By William H. McMichael

The rudder fell off a Mayport, Fla.-based frigate while it was on deployment in the western Mediterranean Sea in late November, the Atlantic Fleet Naval Surface Force confirmed Thursday.

The Nov. 30 mishap forced the ship to send out a call for help, said Paul Taylor, a SurfLant spokesman. The Canadian destroyer HMCS Iroquois responded, providing divers who inspected the ship’s underside. Within 24 hours, the Boone was being towed to Rota, Spain, for repairs by a German replenishment oiler, FGS Spessart, Taylor said.

The ship was not adrift or totally dead in the water because its two 350-horsepower auxiliary propulsion units provided a “limited amount of maneuverability,” Taylor said.

The lost rudder was replaced Dec. 27 and, after a day of operational testing, Boone got underway again Dec. 28, Taylor said.

The problem was the loss of the securing nut at the end of the ship’s rudder post, Taylor said. The nut, which holds the rudder on the post, is supposed to be tightened with roughly 3,000 pounds of torque. For reasons unknown, he said, the nut failed or somehow came loose, and the rudder fell off.

The rudder assembly on Boone, which went into service in 1982, was last inspected during a 2000 dry-dock period at a Jacksonville, Fla., commercial repair facility, Taylor said. He said the such inspections are typically conducted only when ships are placed in dry dock.

Boone left Mayport on Aug. 2 as a solo deployer with orders to operate with Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, formerly Standing Naval Force Atlantic. The group is a squadron of eight to 10 destroyers and frigates that exercise primarily in the eastern Atlantic, generally taking part in warfare training exercises, according to NATO.

As a result of the mishap, Naval Sea Systems Command and Naval Surface Forces have ordered that all Navy frigates be outfitted with a securing pin at the end of their rudder posts, below the securing nut, “so in case this happens again, it’ll hold in place,” Taylor said.

Boone received the modification during its stay in Rota, Taylor said.

The replacement rudder is a story in itself. According to Taylor, the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii-based frigate Crommelin was in dry dock at its home port. Maintenance personnel removed Crommelin’s rudder and sent it to Rota. Other workers recovered a rudder from an inactive frigate at Bremerton, Wash., to replace Crommelin’s. The rudder nut threads on Boone were undamaged, Taylor said, making the repair fairly simple.

Taylor noted that the repair process employed for Boone reflected business practices that the Navy’s coming Class Squadrons will employ and refine. Class Squadrons will be functional commands focused on the training and readiness of specific classes of ships, such as frigates, and will oversee teams of dedicated maintainers for those ships. Implementation teams for the squadrons were launched Oct. 1.

[i guess people who made fun of the Charles de Gaulle when it suffered a similar foible, oughta feel pretty sheepish now ... ]