Page 8: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 15, 1981)

ON THE COVER

First Of New Destroyer Class

Commissioned At Ingalls Yard

Santa Fe Diving Services

Awarded Contract To

Provide RCV And Crew

Santa Fe Diving Services, Inc. of Houma, La., has been awarded a contract by Montreal Micoperi

J.V. to provide a remote-con- trolled underwater vehicle and a crew of operators to assist in the installation of two oil-production platforms off Brazil for the gov- ernment oil agency, Petrobras.

Thomas M. Angel, vice presi- dent and manager of the diving company, said a new remote- controlled unit known as the

RCV-150 will be used on the project. The vehicle is equipped with a manipulator that will op- erate 4-inch emergency valves and cross flood valves to main- tain proper buoyancy of the plat- forms as they are lowered to the seabed. The unit will survey the ocean bottom before and after the installation.

The platforms Enchova and

Cherne are in 115 and 143 meters (377 and 469 feet) of water, re- spectively. Both platforms are in the Campos Basin area on the

Continental Shelf off the State of Rio de Janerio.

Mr. Angel also announced that a Brazilian company, Petroserv

Servicos e Equipamentos Ltda, has been contracted to represent

Santa Fe Diving Services for fu- ture activities in that country.

Santa Fe Diving Services, head- quartered in Houma, is a subsid- iary of Santa Fe International

Corporation. ;"L'-AYI«':EREM0*r.]JUMEI98l ta.N.S. ZEUS.T-ARC-7 CABLE REPAIR sms »*UCT N° N0024-79-2614. DATED 17 AUGJ97^ — BUILT FOR — uuiki ruK ITERATE? > MA&.V iu^ smpp'I SHIPE

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The first of a new class of U.S.

Navy guided-missile destroyers, the most formidable surface ships of their size now joining the

Navy, was commissioned recently at Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries, Pascagoula,

Miss. The USS Kidd (DDG-993) (shown above) officially joined the Navy fleet at the ceremony.

Three additional ships of the class, the Callaghan (DDG-994),

Scott (DDG-995), and Chandler (DDG-996), are also scheduled for delivery to the Navy by Ingalls

Shipbuilding this year.

Based on the proven design of the Ingalls-built Spruance-class destroyers, which began joining the fleet in 1975, the Kidd-class destroyers are multimission, able to operate offensively or to defend against simultaneous air, surface and subsurface attacks. The ship is 563 feet long, with a 55-foot beam and displaces 9,200 tons.

Four gas turbine jet engines pro- pel the ship at speeds in excess of 30 knots. The crew consists of 28 officers and 320 enlisted men.

Weapons include two Mark 26, dual-rail guided-missile launch- ers, two 5-inch/54-caliber light- weight guns, two Harpoon missile 4-cannister launchers, two triple- barrel torpedo tubes, as well as close-in weapons system, decoy system, and two antisubmarine helicopters. Designed and built to be exceptionally quiet, and with the most powerful sonar avail- able, the Kidd can operate offen- sively against submarines. The ship also carries the most sophis- ticated medium-range air defense system now active in the fleet.

Ingalls, long a builder of de- stroyers, cruisers, and amphibi- ous ships, is also building the

U.S. Navy's new class of Ticond- eroga guided-missile cruisers.

When deployed in early 1983, the first of these ships will carry the

Aegis weapons system, the most sophisticated air defense system in the world. The first ship, the

Ticonderoga (CG-47), was chris- tened by Mrs. Ronald Reagan in

May.

The Kidd is the second U.S.

Navy ship named for Rear Adm.

Isaac C. Kidd Sr., who was the senior Naval officer present afloat during the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor. Admiral Kidd died on the bridge of his flagship USS

Arizona during the attack, and was posthumously awarded the

Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery in action.

American Dredging Wins

New Orleans Contract

American Dredging Company,

Camden, N.J., is being awarded a $4,937,550 firm fixed price con- tract for construction of a hy- draulic fill levee enlargement on on Lake Pontchartrain, New Or- leans, La., following competition in which 51 bids were solicited and five were received. The New

Orleans Engineer District, New

Orleans, is the contracting activ- ity. (DACW29-81-C-0227)

Shown at recent keel-laying ceremony for U.S. Navy cable repair ship T-ARC-7 are (L to R): Al Giorgis, vice president-technical, NASSCO; George Uberti, program manager, NASSCO; welding foreman Carlos Gonzalez; Capt. Martin G. Hill, USN, supervisor of shipbuilding, conversion and repair; NASSCO president C. Larry

French; and John M. Murphy, vice president-corporate relations, NASSCO.

National Steel Lays Keel For

U.S. Navy Cable Repair Vessel

A recent keel-laying ceremony at the National Steel and Ship- building Company (NASSCO) yard in San Diego initiated con- struction of the cable repair ship

T-ARC-7 (to be named USNS

Zeus) for the U.S. Navy. Capt.

Martin G. Hill, USN, supervisor of shipbuilding, conversion and repair, struck the initial arc sig- nalling beginning of construction.

C. Larry French, president and chief operating officer, represent- ed NASSCO at the ceremony.

The 512-foot ship will trans- port, deploy, retrieve, and repair submarine cables. She will tow acoustic projectors and a cable plow. Also part of the vessel's primary missions will be acoustic, hydrographic, and bathymetric (deepsea) surveys.

The Navy awarded NASSCO the contract for the design, con- struction, and testing of the tech- nologically unique T-ARC-7 in

August 1979. Engineering has been under way since that time, and fabrication of ship assemblies began last October. Launching is scheduled for July 1982, with de- livery in September 1983.

The cable repair ship will be powered by diesel-electric drive of 10,000 shp, giving her a cruis- ing speed of 15 knots. She will have accommodations for a com- plement of 126, and will be manned and operated by a Mil- itary Sealift Command civilian crew. Up to 1,000 miles of trunk cable for repair operations on communications lines now laid in ocean depths of up to 10 miles will be carried in the ship.

NASSCO, a wholly owned sub- sidiary of Morrison-Knudsen

Company, has a current backlog of approximately $665 million. In addition to the T-ARC-7, ships under contract include two U.S.

Navy destroyer tenders, AD-43 and AD-44, and eight products carriers for private ownership. 10 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News