Yep, me too and there was NEVER even a speckle in ours, we shifted lube oil strainers and inspected them too. Some non- engineering officer was trapesing around the engine room( on the OLD USS Millwaukee that I first served on) qualifying for surface warfare or something, I was standing lower level man and was shifting lube oil strainers. In the botttom of the basket was a magnetic bar over the center bolt of strainer as I demonstrated to him what I was doing I asked him if he knew why the bar was magnetic. He mustered up his best guess and said "well, I think I know why. When the oil goes thru the strainer it imparts a circular motion spinning the metal bar. Because of the ship being metal and the forces of the north and south pole over time the bar becomes magnetized". I'm like WOW, how did you guesss that RIGHT so quickly, guy smiled and said "well, I been to alot of college and classses you would never understand". I told him, go up to main control and tell our chief and the engineering officer THAT too!! So for cheap entertainment I followed him up to the upper level and our chief and our CHENG were signing off his Quals. I told them, ask him about the strainer magnets and walked back down the stairs to lower level, 30 seconds later this guys qual sheets torn in half cam flying down the stairs ( ourchief and cheng were PRICKS) and they told him FNG START OVER!

That's good stuff.

Hope Sea Tow didn't tow them, might claim salvage rights .

I laugh at all these oil threads and how oil breaks down. I know for a fact that for the 4 years I was on FFG 53 the 1000 gal (I think it was 1000 gal or close to that if I remember correctly) of oil in our main reduction gear was never changed. Maybe added 100 gal total. Why add a 100 gal, we'll let's just say our gear did not leak.

You might not be far off cold and hot sea water inlet temps were always messing with us in the engine room. At night when training these ships stay in a small box barley moving maybe 5 knots not enough to generate any heat, compared to the massive cooling capcity. The lube oil temp needs to stay in a certain range (I am guessing but I thought it was like 90f to 140f, someone might remeber) to combat thermal expansion or contraction of the main reduction gear. Engineering watch office was always yelling at us, lube oil temp to cold, lube oil temp to hot. (OK azzhole what would you like me to do it is controlled by an automatic valve). Ahh the good old days.

Back to my point, the colder seawater temps could have been messing with them. However, I am sure they had some experience with it that ship spent plenty of time in cold lake Michigan.

We always talked about the stark and what they went through, sad. I got off in 2000 right before a gulf deployment, that is when the Uss Cole got hit, my ship provided damage control and security help to the Cole right after that happened. I feel for all those women and men.

Must be ethanol in the fuel.. Isnt that the root of all problems lately?

the new engine builder didn't know how to plumb a dry sump system.

Probably those jihad bastards up to no good

I've always thought of the FFG 7 Class as a sorta Bayliner of the Navy. About the time the Stark was commissioned the Ticonderoga class cruisers had come out with Aegis but I think the FFG's radar was something they cobbled together off the shelves of Radio Shack. One of the many drawbacks to the FFG class was a blind spot in their radar.

What I gather from former shipmates is that unlike our former Capt. -who would lock the ships fire control on to any bogey that came within range while in the Gulf to act as a not-to-subtle warning that we were a US man war and to stay the fuk away, Capt Brindle was much less confrontational. He would simply call out radio warnings to bogies. The theory is that this Iraqi pilot mistook the Stark for an Iranian freighter and then fired two missiles at the Stark. The missiles happened to be in her blind spot and her radar never picked them up. The first warning was the fantail watch warning that he spotted two glowing red dots coming at the ship fast.