CG: Waesche handles well through trials - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

CG: Waesche handles well through trials

The builder’s trials for the second-in-class national security cutter Waesche went well, after an issue with its air compressor system temporarily halted the test last week, according to Coast Guard officials.

“The maturity of the systems and software exceeded my expectations,” Coast Guard Capt. Jim Knight said in a blog posted Tuesday on the Coast Guard Web site. He is the commanding officer of the Project Resident Office Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Miss.

The Waesche crew also conducted live fire tests of the close-in weapon system and 57mm gun system, he wrote.

Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, the builder, ran the trials but made space for PRO Gulf Coast personnel. Builder’s trials are used to identify problems that need additional work prior to the government accepting the ship.

“So yes, the nearly 200 government and contractor personnel on the ship generated a sizable work list during the week at sea,” Knight wrote. “There is nothing insurmountable on this list, however.”

The builder’s trials included a 48-hour stop for repairs to a critical medium pressure air compressor system — a known vulnerability caused by the demands of a dehydrator for the electronic warfare suite, wrote Capt. Lance Bardo, the prospective commanding officer for Waesche. The decision to return to port for repairs was a “good risk management decision,” he said.

Problems remain in the ship’s machinery control system, the C4ISR systems, the boat launch and recovery system, and other mechanical systems, but they are “normal” for builder’s trials and not as bad as the system problems encountered during the builder’s and acceptance trials for the first-in-class Bertholf, Bardo wrote. During those trials, engineers discovered design problems with the Bertholf’s hull and sliding stern doors.

Bertholf and Waesche will receive retrofits in five years to strengthen their hulls. Engineers are experimenting with prototype stern doors on Waesche.

Bardo praised the builder’s trials overall.

“If this is what going to sea for the next generation is going to look like, I am envious of the future generation of cuttermen,” he wrote. He said that Waesche’s “not quite finished” propulsion, navigation, and deck systems are a “quantum leap” from the cutters he has sailed on for the past 15 years.

“The ship is smart, handles well, and has capabilities we have only just begun to understand,” he wrote.

Northrop Grumman is building the Waesche under a contract from Integrated Coast Guard Systems, the former lead Deepwater contractor — a joint venture of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.

Knight said Northrop Grumman is using lessons learned from building Bertholf and Waesche in construction of the third cutter Stratton, which is more than 20 percent complete.