The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) is making preparations to get underway from Sembawang after successfully conducting preventive maintenance availability (PMAV) and restricted availability (RAV) maintenance.
This availability was particularly unique, as it was the first maintenance availability conducted at Sembawang. Typically Fort Worth will conduct maintenance availabilities at Changi Naval Base, but the ability to shift the location to a different port further demonstrates the flexibility of the ship as well as the shore support, which will be beneficial when more LCSs are operating in the region.
After a scheduled underway period where Fort Worth completed Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Indonesia, as well as CARAT Malaysia, the ship was due for an in port maintenance period.
This maintenance period had the added complexity of simultaneously undertaking both restricted availability maintenance and preventive maintenance.
The hundreds of preventive maintenance checks that Crew 102 performed over the maintenance period varied from simple tasks to complicated undertakings.
Fort Worth is the second LCS to deploy to U.S. 7th Fleet as part of an initiative to simultaneously deploy up to four LCS to the Indo-Asia-Pacific region in just a few years. The third and fourth LCSs are planned to arrive in 2016, when the region will see two of these ships deployed at the same time.
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Image: US Navy