After 7 months, Port Royal to leave dry dock - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

After 7 months, Port Royal to leave dry dock

The cruiser Port Royal was to leave its dry dock at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard on Thursday, after more than seven months of repairs to damage caused when the ship went aground Feb. 5 off Honolulu Airport.

The ship was scheduled to float off around 11:30 Hawaii Time and move to a shipyard berth, said Navy spokesman Lt. Tommy Buck.

“Repair work will continue pier side, and the ship's crew will conduct several weeks of extensive pier side and underway testing to ensure all systems are operational,” Buck said.

It wasn’t clear when the ship would return to the fleet or be available for a deployment. The Port Royal is one of the Navy’s 18 Aegis ballistic missile defense-capable warships, and could likely be tasked in the coming years for missions in 5th Fleet or 6th Fleet.

The Port Royal went hard aground on a coral reef on its first day back to sea after a four-month overhaul in the shipyard. Salvage teams pulled the cruiser free after it spent the weekend rolling and flexing in the surf. The ship’s commanding officer, Capt. John Carroll, was relieved soon after it docked. Three other officers and one sailor received non-judicial punishment in the grounding.

According to an early version of the incident investigation, the ship’s navigation equipment was broken, its bridge team was inexperienced and Carroll had barely slept in the days leading up to the accident. Still, investigators wrote that sailors had enough working gear and visual cues to have prevented the grounding.