The USS Jefferson City submarine is scheduled to be at its new home base of Pearl Harbor sometime early next week.
This is after the ship had equipment problems during its last deployment.
"The ship was scheduled for a home port shift early next year, but the equipment problems moved that up," said Commander Brook DeWalt.
The ship left in April for a regular six-month western Pacific deployment. It went to Guam in June for a regular visit for maintenance, and at that time a "small" water leak from a valve in the ship's propulsion plant was found.
"The leak occurred where normally it wouldn't leak, so it took a while to find," DeWalt said. "We had to bring in sensitive instruments from Pearl to identify the leak. Once we identified what was next, fix it there or return to San Diego. A third option was selected, go ahead and bring the ship to Pearl ahead of its scheduled home port shift."
DeWalt said when the ship gets in they won't be in service for two years so they can do maintenance that requires dry docking.
"During their 22-month overhaul, the crew will still be busy," he said. "Crew members will assist with maintenance on board the boat. They will work at the training facility at Pearl, and some of the crew will be sent to schools for training."
During this down time, the 140 sailors will also have time to move their families from San Diego to Pearl.
"This is normal for ships to be out for that long a period of time," DeWalt said. "We have 18 subs stationed at Pearl, not counting those like the Jefferson City that are in for repairs."
The ship was commissioned in 1992 and has been in service since then.
Members of the groups here in Jefferson City who have worked to bring crew members from the sub to the Capital City for visits have been worried that moving the home port from San Diego to Pearl Harbor would make it harder for those visits to continue.
"Those namesake visits are very important, and we will do whatever we can to make those happen," DeWalt said.