THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505050546
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
A repair ship that was scheduled to sail for the Mediterranean Sea later this month will remain in Norfolk instead as the Navy considers the long-term value of its fleet of tenders.
The Yellowstone and its crew of 1,500 will stay in port to ``conserve precious operating resources,'' the Navy said Thursday.
The number of Navy ships has declined during the post-Cold War military drawdown from 580 in 1990 to about 380 today.
Navy officials have said that as modern ships requiring less maintenance enter the shrinking fleet, there is less work for tenders to do.
The service is reviewing its practice of routinely sending U.S.-based tenders to sea on a rotating basis and using them instead for specific missions. The Yellowstone was to leave port May 25 to relieve the Shenandoah, which returns to Norfolk on May 17.
The two ships are among the newest of the Navy's six destroyer tenders, massive structures that carry repair shops, parts, provisions and weapons for all surface combat ships - cruisers and frigates as well as destroyers.
During an eight-month deployment that ended in March 1991, the Yellowstone completed more than 10,000 repair jobs on 30 U.S. and allied ships involved in the Persian Gulf war. It worked on as many as nine adjacent ships at one time during a port visit to Naples, Italy.
Women have served aboard tenders for nearly 20 years, long before Congress approved their service on combat ships such as the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The Yellowstone has more than 350 women in its crew.
Launched in 1980, the ship - dubbed ``Old Faithful'' for the national park geyser - is scheduled to be decommissioned next year.
Also leaving the fleet during the next few years are submarine tenders like the Norfolk-based Hunley, decommissioned last year. The Navy now has nine of them.
In its announcement Thursday, the Navy said it will find other ways to keep up maintenance and repairs on its ships in the Mediterranean area, including mobile repair teams, teams stationed aboard combat ships, contracting for repairs overseas, and an Italian-based U.S. submarine tender, the Simon Lake.
The crews of the destroyer tenders would make up many of the mobile ``fly away teams.'' During the Gulf war, 300 Yellowstone crew members in 127 teams carried tools and materials to ships thousands of miles away to make repairs. by CNB