[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11373-11374]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               CONGRATULATING THE ELECTRIC BOAT WORKFORCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, in March of 2009, the USS Hartford, a 17-
year-old Los Angeles-class submarine, was steaming into port in the 
Strait of Hormuz. Visibility was low, and they were riding at ocean 
surface level when, out of the blue, they were struck by the USS San 
Antonio, an LPD amphibious ship. When it violently collided with the 
Hartford, the Hartford rolled 85 degrees, throwing sailors, anything 
that wasn't tied down, flying into the air.
  The good news is that the collision did not result in a breach of the 
submarine. There was no leak through the pressure hull. But the bad 
news is that the sail of the submarine was badly torn 20 to 25 degrees.
  The ship limped home to its home port in Groton, Connecticut, which 
was a tough voyage going across the Atlantic, again riding at the 
surface, which, as many people who know submariners know, is the worst 
place to ride a submarine. But it made it back to port.
  And then the challenge was before the shipyard about how to repair a 
ship that was 17 years old, that was built with totally different 
technology, hand-drawn prints, a workforce that had largely retired, 
and parts that really weren't in existence anymore. But the folks at 
Electric Boat, 450 strong, came together as a team and, calling back 
some of their retirees, were able, over a period of 18 months, to 
perform the most ultimate body shop repair job of a Los Angeles-class 
submarine.
  And I'm happy to report to this House that the USS Hartford is now 
back underway, performing its missions, and will extend the life of, 
again, a submarine that this country invested close to $1 billion 20 
years ago when it was first constructed. Again, the replacement costs, 
if this work had not been done, would be close to $2 billion. What the 
folks at EB were able to do, again, at a cost of about 5 percent of 
that, was to get the USS Hartford operating and at great savings to the 
U.S. taxpayer.
  And I want to share this story because it demonstrates that when you 
invest in people, nuclear welders today, as Admiral Kevin McCoy 
testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week, have a 
value to the U.S. workforce almost as great as a surgeon in terms of 
the skills that they have.

                              {time}  1040

  When you invest in people, when you have those skills and when you 
have the kind of teamwork that we see at EB, this country can succeed 
in ways that no other country in the world can even touch us. The 
complexity of a nuclear submarine matches anything that a space shuttle 
entails in terms of the challenges to support human life in an 
environment where human life cannot exist. And the capabilities of one 
of these vessels, again, defy almost human imagination.
  So congratulations to the workforce at Electric Boat for showing 
again that the United States of America is capable of almost taking on 
any challenge when it has the right combination of investment, skill 
and talent, something which, as we look at our challenges that we face 
as a Nation today, is something that we can both take inspiration from, 
but also learn valuable lessons about where the right priorities of 
this government should be. And investing in education, workforce skills 
again is the best investment to grow this economy and solve America's 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record an article from The New 
London Day written by Jennifer McDermott, which again documents this 
amazing story of technological success.

                    [From TheDay.com, July 17, 2011]

              Electric Boat Gets USS Hartford Back to Sea

                        (By Jennifer McDermott)


               Repairs to damaged sub total $120 million

       Groton, CT.--Repairing a severely damaged 17-year-old 
     submarine with the technology Electric Boat uses to build 
     modern subs was like reconstructing a Ford Model T in a Lexus 
     shop.
       The Navy contracted with EB for about $120 million worth of 
     repairs to the USS Hartford after the Los Angeles-class 
     submarine collided with a Navy amphibious ship in the Strait 
     of Hormuz in 2009.
       The Navy wanted the submarine back at sea as soon as 
     possible--ideally, in one year.
       The repair team at EB knew the Hartford (SSN 768) had 
     rolled about 85 degrees and damaged its sail, hull and port 
     bow plane. But the destruction turned out to be far worse 
     than expected.
       The sail leaned 15 to 20 degrees to the starboard side. 
     Seventy-five percent of it was torn off. It would have to be 
     removed to patch the hull.
       There would be no saving the sub if the Hartford did not 
     keep its shape when welders cut into the hull to remove the 
     damaged section, or after they patched it.
       And the team discovered after the submarine was taken out 
     of the water that the

[[Page 11374]]

     bow plane had caved in to the ballast tank. The masts and 
     antennas weren't working because hydraulic fluid had shot 
     through the system after the collision and damaged many 
     valves.
       ``In my 38 years here, we have never worked on something of 
     this magnitude, repairwise,'' said Stanley J. Gwudz, the 
     director of ship's management who likened the repairs to 
     reconstructing a Model T.
       This type of repair is ``about as complex as they come,'' 
     said Rear Adm. David M. Duryea, deputy commander for undersea 
     warfare.


                        Retirees share knowledge

       Because EB and its relatively young work force are set up 
     for building today's Virginia-class submarines--not for major 
     repairs to the aging Los Angeles class--some former employees 
     came out of retirement to share their knowledge.
       The trick was figuring out how to combine today's 
     technology with yesterday's hand-drawn designs, some of which 
     didn't match up. Daniel Vieira, the ship's manager for the 
     repair project, laughed when asked how such a feat was 
     accomplished.
       ``I lived it, and I'm not sure,'' Vieira said. ``It was 
     through a lot of pain. You know, you depend on a lot of 
     people with a lot of experience and training to come back to 
     you and say, `This is right. This isn't. We need to fix 
     this.'''
       The biggest problem was that the sail had crushed into the 
     pressure hull. It had been 20 years since anyone in the 
     shipyard had performed a major cut into a submarine's hull, 
     the pressure-tight shell of a submarine, while maintaining 
     the circularity of the ship.
       ``The pressure hull is sacred ground,'' Vieira said. ``It 
     keeps water out. Anytime you have anything that penetrates 
     the pressure hull, it's a big deal.''
       The half-moon shaped patch to fix the hull measured more 
     than 150 square feet.
       ``It's very easy to get warping or misalignment or change 
     the geometry with all the welding, which would have 
     significant effects,'' Vieira said. ``The ship is shaped that 
     way for a reason.''
       Welders and shipfitters at EB's Quonset Point facility 
     built a new sail using the modular construction techniques 
     developed for the Virginia class. Years ago they would have 
     had to fix the hull, then build the sail piece by piece on 
     the submarine.
       The repairs could have taken years if each step were done 
     in sequence, instead of at the same time, Gwudz said.


                         Useful lessons learned

       Few vendors still make parts for Los Angeles-class 
     submarines.
       In the crash, the bow plane was forced back into its 
     locking mechanism, caving the structure into the ballast 
     tank. A 16-inch diameter shaft bent 4 inches, but a new shaft 
     wasn't available. So EB engineers incorporated the 4-inch 
     bend into the design. A new, fully functional bow plane was 
     built around the bent shaft to dive the sub.
       The damaged valves were replaced.
       Testing at sea in January showed the repairs to be 
     successful.
       Gwudz could only recall one other repair job at EB where 
     the level of damage on a submarine came close to the severity 
     of the Hartford's. In the early 1980s, he said, a Los 
     Angeles-class submarine needed its masts fixed and a patch 
     underneath. The graving dock was secured for this 
     confidential job and Gwudz said he was never told how the 
     submarine sustained its damage.
       EB can now use what it learned working on the Hartford to 
     repair other Los Angeles-class submarines more effectively, 
     Gwudz said. The USS Alexandria (SSN 757) is at EB for routine 
     maintenance.
       Instead of taking a ventilation valve apart to see which of 
     the older parts are corroded, for example, Gwudz said they 
     will know to get new flappers or linkages because these parts 
     were corroded on the Hartford. That gives vendors more time 
     to make the parts so they are ready when EB needs them.
       Robert Hamilton, an EB spokesman, said the Hartford repair 
     job ``used 50 Connecticut suppliers with a total spend of 
     $3.5 million.''
       The project took more than one million man-hours and the 
     efforts of 450 people at its peak.
       The $120 million price tag is less than 5 percent of what 
     it would have cost to replace the Hartford with a new 
     Virginia-class submarine.
       ``Everybody in the Navy had a lot of confidence in EB and 
     the NAVSEA team to execute the repairs,'' Duryea said, 
     referring to the Navy command responsible for overseeing the 
     construction and maintenance of the Navy's ships. ``Certainly 
     we knew it would be a challenge, but EB does a very good job 
     at executing complex work. This was just another example of 
     the fine work they were able to do.
       ``We needed this capability out in the fleet,'' Duryea 
     said. ``Hartford has a lot of good life left in her, and we 
     wanted to get her back to sea.''


                           Hartford at fault

       EB originally built the Hartford at a cost of about $900 
     million.
       The submarine returned to the Naval Submarine Base in 
     February, nearly two years after the March 2009 crash and 18 
     months after arriving at EB.
       The submerged submarine and the USS New Orleans (LPD 18), a 
     San Diego-based amphibious ship, had both been heading into 
     port when the collision occurred.
       The fuel tank ruptured on the New Orleans, creating a 16-
     by-18-foot hole and spilling about 25,000 gallons of diesel 
     fuel. Two ballast tanks were damaged.
       Navy investigators concluded the crew of the Hartford was 
     at fault. The sub's leadership was called ``ineffective and 
     negligent'' and sailors were accused of falling asleep on the 
     job, spending too much time away from their stations and 
     chatting informally while working.
       Vieira could see a silver lining in the task of repairing 
     the Hartford. He said the repairs were an opportunity for 
     senior employees to impart their knowledge to the younger 
     ones so these newer employees will be able to help with work 
     on the Los Angeles class in the future.
       Duryea agreed that there were technical lessons learned 
     but, he said, ``my only hope is we don't have to do these 
     types of repairs again.''

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