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Teamwork freed stuck cruiser

About 90 minutes after sunset Feb. 5, the cruiser Port Royal was ending its first day back at sea after four months in the shipyard. It was almost quitting time.

The ship had slowed for a few minutes in the clear water about a half-mile off an island runway at Honolulu International Airport so a training team could get into a small boat and ride to nearby Hickam Harbor. With its passengers gone, the 9,600-ton warship could then slip back into its berth at Naval Station Pearl Harbor and tie up for the night.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the ship ground onto a rocky shoal just off the runway. When the sun came up the next day, it was still there.

Port Royal spent four nights on the rocks, leading to one of the biggest Navy surface salvage jobs in years.

After salvage ships wrenched it free early Monday, the Port Royal had lost several blades from both its screws; its anchors and anchor chains; parts of its sonar dome; and its skipper, Capt. John Carroll, who was relieved of command as soon as the ship made it back.

The Navy is still investigating what caused Port Royal’s grounding and what will become a multimillion-dollar bill for its recovery and repair. But the basics of what it took to free the cruiser after four tries already are clear — an old-school salvage job in which small, powerful vessels strained to pull a large, grounded ship back into safe waters.

John Sargent’s phone started ringing around midnight Feb. 5. The master of the Military Sealift Command salvage ship Salvor was told to assemble his crew of civilian mariners and Navy divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 1.

Meanwhile, four harbor tugs were assembled off the airport and had tried to free the Port Royal, but the ship wouldn’t budge. After the sun rose the next day, the Salvor cast off its lines for the short trip to the shoal off the Honolulu airport.

Sargent wasn’t sure what to expect. The Port Royal was stuck on rocks parallel to shore; its orientation meant the Salvor crew members couldn’t pull it free the way they usually practiced.

The Salvor is designed to tie up to the end of the grounded ship, sink its de-beaching gear in deeper water, and then use its powerful winches to pull itself and the stranded ship out of the shallows.

A source with close knowledge of the Port Royal salvage job said Navy engineers worried that clawing at the sea floor with de-beaching gear could damage nearby reefs. The source asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. The Navy would not comment on the Port Royal salvage decisions.

Once planners ruled out using the customary de-beaching methods to rescue Port Royal, it meant the Salvor would have to try a “bollard pull” — securing a line to Port Royal’s stern and gunning the engines to try to pull it off the rocks. So, as high tide came in early Feb. 6, the crew tried it.

The chain snapped. The cruiser remained hung up.

Brute force with finesse

For their next try, Navy engineers needed to study how the Port Royal had gone onto the rocks so they could plot the clearest path to tow it out. But according to a Feb. 7 operational report obtained by Navy Times, neither divers nor underwater robots could see details of the shoal or the cruiser’s underside because there was too much sediment. The Port Royal rolled heavily with the waves, churning up a screen of silt.

As a result, the ship was forced to turn off its air conditioning system because it couldn’t draw in enough clear water. With no air conditioning, it couldn’t cool its communication and combat systems, so those had to be shut off.

After two tries, simple brute force wasn’t working. So the Navy tried even more brute force, with a little finesse. It brought in the large, powerful tug Dove for a third try early Feb. 8 to free the Port Royal.

As high tide came in, engineers lined up tugs along the cruiser’s port quarter as Dove and Salvor struggled to pull it aft. They wanted to pivot the Port Royal to swing its stern into deeper water, or at least so the ship was perpendicular to the beach, Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck said. The ship didn’t move out of the shallows, but its stern pivoted about 20 degrees out to sea.

As a tug kept the ship steady, engineers with Naval Sea Systems Command set about capitalizing on its new position. They emptied the seawater pumped in to compensate for the fuel Port Royal’s engines had burned. They dropped its anchors and anchor chains onto the sea floor to lighten the bow. They took off 140 members of the ship’s 324-sailor crew.

All together, the Port Royal was about 600 tons lighter as the sun set Feb. 8, when the Dove, Salvor and seven other tugs got into position again. About 2 a.m. the next day, the tide began to come in.

The Navy and commercial harbor tugs took either side of the Port Royal to steady the ship, making sure it didn’t yaw into the rocks as it was towed. The Dove and Salvor were again hooked up to the stern, with the Dove pulling directly astern and the Salvor at a slight angle toward deeper water. The tugs were trying to guide the ship through a deep area MDSU 1 divers had spotted during the day, Sargent said. After several minutes, the cruiser finally began to move. Forty minutes later, it was off the reef.

“I’ve never done anything like this before — it was quite exciting though,” Sargent said. “It was very interesting and we learned a lot.”

More about the Port Royal’s grounding:

• Navy details damage to grounded Port Royal

• Port Royal CO fired after grounding

• Grounded cruiser off Hawaii pulled free

• Latest try to free grounded Port Royal fails

• Navy fails to free grounded Port Royal

• Port Royal grounded off Hawaii coast