US Navy’s 10,300-ton warship USS Gridley heads for two-year modernization in Seattle

The U.S. Navy has awarded Vigor Marine a $222.5 million contract to modernize the USS Gridley (DDG 101), taking the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer out of active service for nearly two years. The destroyer has a full-load displacement of approximately 10,300 tons. The overhaul follows a demanding operational period in which the warship was deployed across the Middle East, Indo-Pacific, and Latin America. Work will take place at Vigor’s shipyard in Seattle, Washington, and is expected to be completed by December 2028. Additional contract options could bring the total value to $232.5 million. Most of the contract will fund new ship systems The contract allocates $207.1 million, or about 93 percent of the initial funding, from fiscal 2027 Navy procurement funds. Another $2 million comes from fiscal 2026 procurement funds. These accounts support the purchase and installation of new equipment aboard existing Navy vessels. The remaining $13.4 million comes from operations and maintenance funding, which covers routine repairs and upkeep. This portion accounts for around 6 percent of the initial contract value and expires at the end of the current fiscal year. The work includes labor, equipment, production, testing, and quality assurance under a Chief of Naval Operations availability. The Navy describes the project as covering “critical modernization, maintenance, and repair programs,” although it has not disclosed the specific systems or equipment planned for installation. Vigor Marine, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, will carry out the work under an agreement managed by the Program Acquisition Executive Maritime in Washington, D.C. Vigor receives a larger contract than its previous job The Navy restricted competition for the contract under 10 U.S.C. 3204(a)(3), a provision that allows federal agencies to limit bidding to maintain industrial capacity for potential national emergencies. The arrangement also helps preserve ship repair facilities near major Navy fleet concentrations. Vigor’s Seattle facility is among the few private shipyards in the Pacific Northwest that can handle a destroyer of Gridley’s size. The new award is almost six times larger than the company’s previous contract for the same vessel. In February 2023, Vigor received a $37.4 million contract to maintain and modernize Gridley at its homeport in Everett, Washington. That work was scheduled for completion in October of the same year. Destroyer returns from demanding deployment schedule Gridley returned to Naval Station Everett on December 12, 2025, following a nine-month deployment with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group across the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas. It returned to sea in February 2026 for another deployment, this time supporting U.S. Southern Command. The destroyer escorted the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) around South America during Operation Southern Seas. The strike group visited Valparaíso, Chile, in April before Gridley moved to Operation Southern Spear in June to support the U.S. military’s counter-narcotics campaign in the Western Hemisphere. On August 13, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth visited the ship in Panama City during the Panamax 2026 exercise. Gridley was preparing to transit the Panama Canal for operations in the Eastern Pacific with Joint Task Force-Western Hemisphere. “The defense of the Homeland lives on the USS Gridley,” said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Modernization comes as destroyer maintenance faces delays Built by Bath Iron Works in Maine, Gridley entered service in 2007. It belongs to the Flight IIA variant of the Arleigh Burke class, which introduced hangars for two MH-60R helicopters and carries 96 Mk 41 vertical launch cells for missiles, including Standard Missile, Tomahawk, and Evolved Sea Sparrow. At nearly 20 years old, the destroyer is approaching the midpoint of its planned 40-year service life, when major modernization work is typically scheduled. However, maintenance delays remain a challenge. A December 2025 Congressional Budget Office report found that Arleigh Burke-class destroyers could spend more than nine years, or 27 percent of their planned service lives, undergoing maintenance. Only 4 percent of overhauls finished within the timelines outlined in the Navy’s original plans. Other Flight IIA vessels face similar upgrades. USS Pinckney (DDG 91), for example, is scheduled for depot maintenance through 2028 as the first destroyer to receive the full DDG MOD 2.0 upgrade, including the SPY-6(V)4 radar.Get the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.A versatile writer, Sujita has worked with Mashable Middle East and News Daily 24. When she isn't writing, you can find her glued to the latest web series and movies.