Think your project had a break in problem

[Falcon67]

Maybe the Navy didn't use oil with enough zinc.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/13/us/navy-ship-milwaukee-breaks-down/index.html

(CNN)The Navy's newest ship, the littoral combat ship Milwaukee, broke down on Friday and had to to be towed to a base in Virginia, the Navy Times reports.

The $360-million ship was commissioned last month in Milwaukee and was on its way to its home port of San Diego. The long journey took it through the Great Lakes and to Halifax, Canada.

The ship was on its next leg, from Halifax to Florida, when it "suffered an engineering casualty," the Navy Times reports.

The ship had to be towed more than 40 nautical miles to the naval base in Little Creek, Virginia.

The Navy Times reported that the initial indication is that metal debris collected in an oil filter, causing the system to shut down, though the source of the fine metal debris was not known.

[Drew Pojedinec]

Being a marine engineer, I have to comment that this is absurd.

Hear me out....
This ship doesn't have one big engine, it has four v1708's.  With four engines should come four separate oil systems, and separate centrifuges.  The boat also has a huge crew of trained diesel mechanics.

To lose ALL four engines is beyond comprehension (I mean, that is why you have four of them). 

We've had problems with the new GE engines grinding cams to nothing, but my company has been able to keep them alive.  Engines of this size rarely have one camshaft, typically they are camshaft sections bolted together for each cylinder.  Most times they are removable from a door in the engine block.

[WConley]

My dad was a WW-II naval officer, and his ship (U.S.S. Astoria #2) was built at Philadelphia Navy Yard.  They had to cruise through the Panama Canal to get to the Pacific Theater, and on this maiden cruise they kept seizing main propeller shaft bearings.

When they finally were able to limp into Long Beach for permanent repairs, they discovered that a sailor had been pouring sugar into the bearings!  I guess he wasn't too keen to go out and shell Iwo Jima and dodge kamikazes...

[shady]

maybe not an engine failure, but a transmission or final drive issue? I know absolutely nothing about boats, but I did stay in a Holiday inn express once.

[Drew Pojedinec]

They don't have normal transmissions like in a car, these are waterjet propulsion.

[Hemi Joel]

It seems strange that a ship that big, that cost that much would only have a quartet of 1280 horsepower Diesels.  Why not go nuclear?

[Qikbbstang]

Ha Ha is this a "trick" posting?......377ft long, 40+ knots, Uncle Sam's money and you jokers expect me to believe it's propulsion is by (4) diesels?................
So I checked it's propulsion is listed as (2) Turbines and (2) Diesels.  My bet's on the diesels are "kicker" engines and provide a small fraction of the turbine's power.

    Got to say though with some twenty five million plus dollars worth of filters under my belt before I retired, I've seen and heard of all kinds of mega buck phuc-ups. I had never heard anyone stupid enough to state "debris in the filters" was the problem.
    Per Joel: "Why not go nuclear?" whew -- just ask Japan. Seriously I think they are combustion turbines essentially Jet Engines though in industry they go Co-Gen and turn the waste exhaust heat into heating or cooling. You boil lithium bromide in an absorption refrigeration system.

         Hopefully you all will get a kick from this: Biggest "filter" screw up I ever saw was at Seminole Electric, Palatka. Maintenance guy was to change the hydrogen seal oil filters on 650-megawatt coal-fired steam turbine. The filters are in a duplex housing configuration designed so no mater where the diverter valve is positioned, lube flow in uninterrupted through the duplex'd assembly.. The worker got mixed up with which vessel was On/Off and barely cracked open the wrong ASME code eye-bolt closure vessel that was flowing the oil, not the one that was shut-off. This started spraying oil mist on a "steaming" hot section of the turbine and it ignited. Problem is the leaking burning seal oil lube is used to hold back pressurized hydrogen.  When the lubes cut-off or system runs dry hydrogen's coming out to meet the oil fueled fire.
              Long story short I saw the 8-10ft tall by 80-90ft long bridge crane I-beams (with no load) at the roof buckled/melted from the heat and they were 40ft above the turbine floor....

[ScotiaFE]

Well I do have a bit of the Navy stuff in my past.
The diesels are for cruising and fuel saving and the GT's are for giddy up boys.
My guess is a lub oil contamination problem for the gear boxes.
As they are probably still under manufacturers warranty they were told to shut them down
and tow it in. BTDT
 

[Drew Pojedinec]

Probably right Scotia.....  (about warranty)
And even Nuclear powered vessels often have diesels for puttering around or for in port.

[Falcon67]

"Hello Marinette Marine?  Department of the Navy here, it's about that boat you sold us...We have missions scheduled so we're going to need a loaner.  We'll just leave it at the dock, keys are under the mat in the conning tower." 

[Qikbbstang]

Something smells fishy that they had to be towed..... Awful lot of drive redundancy (2) and (2) to leave them dead in the water.  More like they cried wolf to rub it in someone's face to make the "damage" look worse. In the future I wonder if the full story comes out.
   Funny but in a fast deep-v offshore powerboat if one of two motors dies you can not get her up on plane with one drive, so your stuck putting along. 

[ScotiaFE]

  More like they cried wolf to rub it in someone's face to make the "damage" look worse.

LOL BB.
Yup that's what they do on a front line Combat Vessel. 

[Falcon67]

You should read about the first of the line - not so good

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Freedom_(LCS-1)