YOKOSUKA, Japan –
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) completed its four-month Selected Restricted Availability on time May 14, 2023, in Yokosuka, Japan.
According to Brent Pickard, project superintendent, the SRA was a collaborative effort among Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility employees at the shipyard’s detachment in Yokosuka, U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility- Japan employees, Ship’s Force and contractors.
The PSNS & IMF team accomplished 96.1K resource days of work, including 19,752 performed by Ship’s Force. The repairs included some notable milestones for the team in Japan.
Some of the major upgrades and repairs, which comprised thousands of resource days of work, included reboiler re-tubing and upkeep on the electric throttle control, along with the regularly scheduled maintenance and minor repairs.
According to Pickard, PSNS & IMF had never completed the re-tube of the reboiler in this short of an availability.
“This was accomplished by the great work of all PSNS [& IMF] employees, but specifically the Shop 56 (pipefitters) led by supervisor David Foiles and Shop 11 (shipfitters) led by supervisor Christopher Vaughn were instrumental in this success,” Pickard said. “Their expert trade knowledge, communication and team work had a positive impact on the success of this SRA.”
PSNS & IMF completed the aircraft elevator eddy current inspections for the first time using a new process, and accomplished an extensive and complex blast-and-paint sequence, as well as coolant turbine generator mapping and balancing for the first time in Japan.
Pickard said that applying lessons learned from the Ronald Reagan’s 2022 SRA for reboiler re-tubing, electric throttle control work, reactor ventilation work, and the bilge lighting work contributed to the success of the 2023 Ronald Reagan SRA.
According to several project leaders, teammates communicated problems early and assisted with the solutions, and were consistently monitoring the six principles of work execution, which contributed to starting work on time and to the success of this availability. This flexibility and patience of the integrated project team allowed the team to quickly adapt and stay on track.
“This SRA was challenged with a later-than-normal ship arrival, which pushed the project early start back,” Pickard said. “Even with the later-than-normal start, the team completed a satisfactory Chapter 13 fire drill (first time in Japan), a satisfactory chapter 12 fire drill, a satisfactory Joint Drill, a satisfactory 8010 audit and a satisfactory Naval Sea Systems Command 08 audit.”
Completing the availability on time was due to the extreme professionalism from the entire maintenance team, who dealt with all challenges effectively.