By Chris Winters The [Everett] Herald
EVERETT — The sailors continue to come and go aboard the USS Ingraham at the Everett Naval Station.
But they’re winding the 26-year-old frigate down and preparing for its decommissioning and dismantlement.
The process needs to be completed by Jan. 30, when it will be towed to Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton and scrapped.
The ship was given a decommissioning ceremony Nov. 12, but its pennant still flies from the mast, signifying that although close to the end of its life, it’s still an active ship.
“We’re still functioning, and she’s kind of alive,” said Cmdr. Elaine Brunelle, the ship’s executive officer.
Brunelle is acting commanding officer while Cmdr. Daniel Straub is on leave.
Routine continues
The crew still keeps Navy routine, as when a sailor arrives at her stateroom to deliver the noon reports.
She approves them, and the sailor salutes and departs.
Shortly afterward, eight noon bells chime over the ship’s public-address system.
The decommissioning announcement came while the Ingraham was at sea and was a shock, Brunelle said.
She would have become the commanding officer of the Ingraham after 18 months of service aboard, replacing Straub.
“We were supposed to be some of the last COs,” Brunelle said.
Instead, she will transfer to USS Momsen, a guided-missile destroyer also stationed in Everett, to be its executive officer for 18 months.
Straub is relocating to San Diego.
Commissioned in 1988, the Ingraham was to have been kept in service until 2019.
But budget cuts led the Navy to put the frigate on the decommissioning list for this year, a Navy spokeswoman confirmed.
14 ships mothballed
According to the Navy’s long-term plan, 14 ships will be decommissioned by the end of the fiscal year, which ends Oct. 30, 2015.
That includes the frigate USS Rodney M. Davis, also stationed at Naval Station Everett, as well as eight other Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, the only remaining ships of that class in the Navy.
The Rodney M. Davis is slated for foreign military sale after it is decommissioned, which likely will happen in the spring, said Kristin Ching, Naval Station Everett public affairs officer.
The Navy also is decommissioning an amphibious assault ship, two submarines and the USNS Rainier, a support vessel stationed in Bremerton.
That will leave Naval Station Everett with three warships: the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the USS Shoup and USS Momsen.
Two Coast Guard cutters also call Everett home, and, when there is a free pier, two Military Sealift Command ships can dock there, although they’re not technically stationed at the base, Ching said.
Munitions removed
Aboard the USS Ingraham, the munitions and fuel had been removed from the ship in the first phase of decommissioning, said Senior Chief Petty Officer Paul Dammon, who is overseeing the entire process.
One of the ship’s two gas turbines was shut down last Thursday, and the other one was being made ready to turn off.
The crew is also finding homes for some of the valuable equipment aboard, “anything that can be used on another ship, anything from the firefighting equipment to electronics — even things like printer paper,” Dammon said.
Most of that equipment will either be stored on base or transferred to other ships stationed in Everett or within Destroyer Squadron 9, the Ingraham’s last group assignment.
________
Chris Winters, staff writer with the Herald, a sister newspaper of the PDN, can be reached at 425-374-4165 or via cwinters@heraldnet.com.
