The USS Zumwalt, the Navy's brand new stealth destroyer, has been sidelined on its first mission after suffering minor casualties transiting the Panama Canal.
The repairs are expected to take upwards of 10 days.
The guided missile destroyer was in the middle of transiting the Canal when it lost propulsion in its port shaft. Crew reportedly witnessed water coming in two of the four bearing that connect the motors to the drive shafts. The electrical motors are massive and are driven by the ship's gas turbines.
Two tugs were used to complete the transit, which created added cosmetic damage when the ship rubbed against the lock walls.
Video footage of the Zumwalt pierside in Panama.
The Zumwalt is one of three warships that cost $22 billion altogether, built at Bath Iron Works in Maine. The Michael Monsoor and Lyndon B. Johnson are currently under construction. The ship is 61-feet long, and has an angular shape to minimize detection by radar. She's considered the most technologically sophisticated destroyer ever built for the Navy, the Baltimore Sun reports.
This is the second similar incident with the ship. In September, before its official commissioning, the crew discovered a minor leak in "the propulsion motor drive lube oil auxiliary system for one of the ship's shafts," the Navy reported at the time.
The Zumwalt experienced further yet unspecified engineering trouble around the time it arrived at the naval station in Mayport, FL. At that time, it spent extra time repairing and testing its advanced propulsion system. The ship's Integrated Power System (IPS) is one of the most complex systems in the Navy, providing the ship with the power to utilize high-energy weapons and sensors. Its testing and development was one of the reasons why the ship was delivered months later than expected.
The ship was set to arrive in San Diego by the end of 2016, where she would spend a year in "weapon system activation" period, joining the Navy's fleet and becoming an operational warship sometime in 2018. Whether or not this timeline is affected by the Panama delay is not currently known.
