EVERETT — The USS Ingraham is docked at Naval Station Everett, and sailors continue to come and go.
But they’re winding the ship down and preparing for its decommissioning and dismantlement.
The process needs to be completed by Jan. 30, when it will be towed to Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton and scrapped.
The ship was given a decommissioning ceremony Nov. 12, but its pennant still flies from the mast, signifying that, this close to the end of its life, it’s still an active ship.
“We’re still functioning and she’s kind of alive,” said Cmdr. Elaine Brunelle, the ship’s executive officer. Brunelle is also acting captain while Cmdr. Daniel Straub is on leave.
The crew still keeps Navy routine, as when a sailor arrives at her stateroom to deliver the noon reports. She approves them and the sailor salutes and departs. Shortly afterward, the eight noon bells chime over the ship’s PA system.
The decommissioning announcement came while the Ingraham was at sea and was a shock, Brunelle said.
She would have become the commanding officer of the Ingraham after 18 months of service aboard, replacing Straub.
“We were supposed to be some of the last COs,” Brunelle said.
Instead she will transfer to USS Momsen, a guided missile destroyer also stationed in Everett, to be its executive officer for 18 months. Straub is relocating to San Diego.
Commissioned in 1989, the Ingraham was to have been kept in service until 2019.
But budget cuts led the Navy to put the Ingraham on the decommissioning list for this year, a Navy spokeswoman confirmed.
According to the Navy’s long-term plan, 14 ships will be decommissioned by the end of the fiscal year, which ends Oct. 30, 2015.
That includes the frigate USS Rodney M. Davis, also stationed at Naval Station Everett, as well as eight other Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, the only remaining ships of that class in the Navy. It is currently on deployment.
The Rodney M. Davis is slated for foreign military sale after it is decommissioned, which will likely happen in the spring, said Kristin Ching, Naval Station Everett public affairs officer.
The Navy is also decommissioning an amphibious assault ship, two submarines and the USNS Rainier, a support vessel stationed in Bremerton.
That will leave Naval Station Everett with just three warships: the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the USS Shoup and USS Momsen.
Two Coast Guard cutters also call Everett home, and, when there is a free pier, two Military Sealift Command ships can dock there, although they’re not technically stationed at the base, Ching said.
Elsewhere aboard the Ingraham, there are signs of the ship being slowly shut down.
Temporary work stations are being set up in one of the ship’s helicopter hangars as they are shut down elsewhere on the ship.
“This will be a common room for everybody,” said Lt. j.g. Victor Triscas, the ship’s electronic warfare officer.
A wall that bore the ship’s commendations is now bare except for the adhesives that used to secure the plaques and awards.
Triscas and Lt. j.g. Aaron Comins removed the commanding officer’s plaque from the wall near the captain’s stateroom. It will be packed off to the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C., Triscas said.
On the foredeck, Chief Petty Officer Shawn Boomer, Petty Officer 2nd Class Geoffrey Grey and Seaman Robert Swanson removed the heavy brass ship’s bell from its mounting.
The munitions and fuel had been removed from the ship in the first phase of decommissioning, said Senior Chief Petty Officer Paul Dammon, who is overseeing the entire process.
One of the ship’s two gas turbines was shut down Thursday, and the other one was being made ready to turn off.
The crew is also finding homes for some of the valuable equipment aboard, “anything that can be used on another ship, anything from the fire fighting equipment to electronics, even things like printer paper,” Dammon said.
Most of that equipment will either be stored on base or transferred to other ships stationed in Everett or within Destroyer Squadron 9, the Ingraham’s last group assignment.
One visitor Wednesday was Ensign Ryan Wu, a supply officer from a cruiser based in San Diego. He was there to see what surplus equipment was available for his ship, the USS Lake Champlain.
“It’s a win-win position for both ships,” Wu said.
Up on the bridge, banks of high-tech radar, communications and navigation equipment mixed with old-style brass speaking tubes, telephones and chart tables piled with folded signal flags. The Ingraham was one of the last large warships that still used paper charts, and those will also be put into storage, Triscas said.
By Monday, almost all of the ship will be dark, and the crew will be living in barracks on shore.
“We’ll still have bottled water and electrical power, but no sewer, no mess service,” Triscas said.
Down near the ship’s main workshop, one lonely crewman sat propped against a bulkhead with an empty can of Mountain Dew: Oscar, the rescue/medical practice dummy.
“Oscar goes swimming a lot,” Triscas explained.
With a worn uniform and dirty feet, however, Oscar’s days at sea, like the Ingraham’s, appeared to be over.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
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