Unsurprising, but still somewhat disappointing...

[Skyfire77]

As a result of a series of explosions and fires in July of this year (Christ, was that only in July? Seems like forever ago...), the US Navy has decided to scrap the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) rather than repair it.

USS Bonhomme Richard on fire, July 12th, 2020

Some of the fire damage inside the ship

63 sailors and civilian firefighters were injured in the initial explosion and the subsequent firefighting efforts, and to date no official finding on the cause have been announced, though arson is a possibility. The Navy is hoping to use the lessons learned from the experience in improving plans and fire fighting equipment for future ships

The Navy assessed that it would have cost between $2.5 and $3.2 billion to restore Bonhomme Richard to its pre-fire configuration, a process that was estimated to take between five and seven years to complete in a Gulf Coast shipyard. A less costly repair option that would have resulted in the vessel being reconfigured as a hospital ship or submarine tender would still have likely cost more than a billion dollars and taken five to seven years to complete, a greater expenditure of time and resources than buying an all-new ship for either of these roles.

Scraping the ship is expected to cost around $30 million, and though the Navy is salvaging what it can from the wreck, a full breaking and recycling can't happen until the investigations are complete.

The loss reduces the Navy fleet of Wasp-class 'Phibs to 7, with 2 additional America (LHA)-class in service, plus a third, USS Bougainville, expected to be launched in 2024. Ingals Shipbuilding received a contract in May of this year for the as-yet unnamed LHA-9, though that would not be expected until 2025-2030.

[ttyymmnn]

Not surprising at all. A shame to lose a good ship but it was done for.

[CB]

So when’s it going on Copart?

[ranwhenparked]

@skyfire77 Given the extent of the damage, not surprising at all. $3.2 billion and 7 years to fully repair, $1 billion and a similar time frame to convert to another use, and you know those are optimistic estimates - with any government contracts, tack on another few billion and another few years. And it only took 3 years and $1.2 billion (inflation adjusted) to build in the first place, and was already over halfway through its designed useful lifespan.

[Exage03040]

Yeah, she got warped pretty good. It raged on long enough that I pegged it as overcooked and finished.
Refit is just the worst for shit like this. I had some reply post on Kinja about why vessels tend to light off: Hot work, critical systems disabled, dealing with reduced crew, crew that doesn't want to work, and contractors that don't give a toss about clean working spaces or the vessel in general.

[BaconSandwich]

@cb said in Unsurprising, but still somewhat disappointing...:

So when’s it going on Copart?

That honestly made me laugh out loud.

I wonder how long it'd take if you had a small army of people with cutting torches, to completely hack it up into little bits, rather than hauling it to some other ship breaking yard.

[ttyymmnn]

@exage03040 I spent a summer working for a temporary employment service and one of the jobs we had the hardest time filling was fire watch at the shipyard. It's a critical gig, but it sounds like it's just mind crushingly boring.

[Exage03040]

@ttyymmnn

Well it more or less is.
Usually your just a hand helping the welder (or whom ever is doing hot work), can't look at him welding, have to smell the fumes. And then usually they want you to stick around for at least 30min (whatever the safety reg is) after completion by yourself to make sure nothing is smouldering and lights off.

I work engineering and it's the most stressful time onboard outside of an actual emergency. The Chief is freaking out everyday because there's always BS going on, changing his plans or delaying. The watch keeper [EOW] is basically juggling work with people trying to interrupt all the time while trying to supervise the vessel being safe (which it won't be).

I've seen almost everything; welding fire in the fiddly, various injury some rather serious, 600VAC electrocution, tank entry asphyxiation. They had one yard worker fall off the work boat a few months ago and pass away.

[A Former User]

Wow i never even heard about it what with all the idiots yelling at eachother about which way they want to run our lives.

[ttyymmnn]

@exage03040 I've seen videos of guys cleaning tanks. No thanks. Or should I say, no tanks.

[Chariotoflove]

@skyfire77 I'm surprised it isn't being sold to an Italian firm for Mediterranean cruises or something. That just means I've been reading ranwhenparked's posts too much.

[zipfuel]

Wonder how stripping and sinking it as an artificial reef would work out cost wise vs cutting it up

[Chariotoflove]

@zipfuel said in Unsurprising, but still somewhat disappointing...:

Wonder how stripping and sinking it as an artificial reef would work out cost wise vs cutting it up

That is a great idea. They would have to be able to tow it to the needed location.

[Skyfire77]

@zipfuel Getting it safe to sink probably would have been more than the Navy was willing to eat.

[6MT_FTW]

@baconsandwich That reminds me of the scrapping of a large aircraft tug at the airport I used to work at. The mechanics spent their evenings cutting it apart and recycling the scrap metal. It was probably worth it since those things are positively loaded with ballast; I think the minimum weight for one for a full widebody is over 40,000 lbs, and I'm sure that this weighed more than that.

[BaconSandwich]

@6mt_ftw I'm reminded of ants carrying something big to their nest, then tearing it apart to fit it down the hole.

[pip bip]

@skyfire77 clearly a decent blaze if they're scrapping it

[Skyfire77]

@pip-bip Apparently it burned hot enough, long enough to warp the flight deck and island, plus do heavy damage to the hangar deck. It literally will be cheaper to buy a new one than try and rebuild.

[Skyfire77]

@pip-bip Apparently it burned hot enough, long enough to warp the flight deck and island, plus do heavy damage to the hangar deck. It literally will be cheaper to buy a new one than try and rebuild.