U.S. Navy pulls patrol ships over wear, cracks

The Navy is pulling its entire fleet of coastal patrol ships from service, including the five forward-deployed to the Persian Gulf, to repair hull cracks and other damage associated with long service and hard use, Navy Times has learned.

Inspections turned up “significant structural damage” to the PC fleet, and “all vessels have experienced frame buckling and damage to the hull. Corrosion is also evident,” said an announcement by Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

The ships, which entered service in the early 1990s, are past their service lives, and engineers are worried about their ability to handle the full range of speeds and sea states for which they were originally designed, Johnson said.

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