Troubled amphibious assault ship USS Boxer to be repaired

The Navy announced Wednesday that it will repair the troubled amphibious assault ship USS Boxer at Naval Base San Diego and may be able to allow the ship to resume its Indo-Pacific deployment as soon as this summer .

The ship was forced to return to San Diego in early April after experiencing mechanical problems with its starboard rudder. The outage came just 10 days after the start of a deployment that had been delayed by other mechanical issues.

“Waterborne repairs will be performed at the dock and are unlikely to require dry docking,” the Navy said in a statement, adding that it was “taking appropriate steps to ensure dry dock space is available if necessary.” was necessary.”

“The Navy maintenance community is conducting root cause analysis to help determine the cause of repairs. »

The repair situation was complicated by the fact that BAE Systems and General Dynamics-NASSCO did not have the space to quickly accommodate the ship at their San Diego Bay shipyards.

The 843-foot Boxer is a “mini” aircraft carrier that stores a variety of aircraft. It is considered one of the Navy’s most important ships because it has the ability to rapidly deploy Marines around the world.