I worked on the USNS Bob Hope a multipurpose roll on roll off and container ship built for the Navy. It was the first of class and when I got on board was a rust bucket. The problem was a very poor maintenance schedule which featured stripped own crews form 30 or so to eight or nine when not in service. When the sailing orders came the Navy spent tons of additional money in a mad dash for required repairs. Deck drains around cargo hatches at one point which led nowhere having never been connected then blocked off. Well that was one problem but the last ship of the class was so poorly made it didn't make it to the ocean as the drive shafts to the props were out of alignment. Contractors got extra money not fines....The need for cargo ships was so critical the navy bought ships anywhere they could find them before the 2003 invasion but couldn't afford to fix them. One had a stern light that was kept on it's mount with figure eighted rope and had to be hand adjusted to aim dead astern every time the watch did a deck check. The main horn could not give signals with out shorting out the whole system. A problem I recall that was never fixed. At one point during shore training we were in the warehouse in New Jersey that put together equipment sets for such things as lifeboats, fire extinguishers whatever when a group of the Military Sealift Command heavyweights came through talking about commissioning one of the out of service ammo ships. "No problem we'll just move x million from this ship's budget to that one. One of 'this' ship's mentioned was mine. I mentioned that to one of the deck officers on return and he didn't believe me. Until we lost that part of the budget and a lot of the overtime budget.

Whoever ran that outfit should still be in jail. That was just the icing on a very rotten cake the list was a lot longer than this forum has room .

But the contractors loved it! Although they said each time they would rather have done the work during the month or so we were tied up and short crewed.