Repairs cause LCS to miss Canadian Centennial - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Repairs cause LCS to miss Canadian Centennial

The littoral combat ship Freedom will miss the Canadian Navy’s 100th birthday party next week and instead spend more time preparing for a major fleet exercise, the Navy announced Monday.

Other U.S. Navy ships scheduled to attend, including the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and cruiser Chosin, will still take part in the International Fleet Review scheduled for June 9-14 at Victoria, British Columbia.

The Freedom has been at San Diego since finishing up her maiden deployment April 23. A number of minor problems cropped up during her cruise, including, according to Naval Surface Forces, minor leaks “in both the port and starboard splitter gear lube oil coolers.”

Additionally, “cracks and minor structural damage was discovered in one of the centerline fuel tanks,” the Navy said.

Freedom will carry out postrepair shakedown cruising off the southern California coast this week, and is scheduled to head out in mid-June for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the bi-annual Rim of the Pacific exercises.

The exact causes of the ship’s problems are under review, Servello said, and lessons learned will be passed on to “the LCS program office and shipyard so that these types of issues may be corrected or avoided in the future.”

The fleet review will take place off the Canadian Navy’s Pacific base at Esquimalt. In addition to visitors from the United States, naval ships from Australia, France, Japan and New Zealand are expected to attend.

A similar review is scheduled at Canada’s Atlantic base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, for June 28 to July 2.