Port Royal returns for $20M in repairs

The Navy cruiser USS Port Royal is back in Pearl Harbor shipyard for more than $20 million in repairs — on top of the $40 million spent to fix damage from a 2009 grounding and an $18 million refurbishment immediately before the warship ran aground.

The latest yard period, which began in September and is expected to end in late February, is to address cracks discovered in the aluminum alloy superstructures on all 22 of the Navy's Ticonderoga-class cruisers, officials said. The ships were commissioned between 1986 and 1994.

The Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., said cruiser hulls are made of steel and that superstructures — everything above the main deck — were fabricated using lighter-weight aluminum alloy 5456, a material that has been used by the Navy on deckhouses since 1958.

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