WASHINGTON – Bath Iron Works has lost out in the government’s review of options on what to do with the USS Cole (DDG-67), Defense officials said.

The U.S. Navy has decided to use Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss., for the yearlong repair work on the Cole, the U.S. guided missile destroyer that was damaged by an apparent terrorist attack on Oct. 12 while refueling at the port in Aden, Yemen. The repairs are scheduled to start in January.

Defense and Navy officials decided to haul the stricken destroyer back to the Gulf of Mexico after comparing the capabilities of the two shipyards and deciding that either Ingalls or Bath would be a better location for the work than the ship repair teams at Hampton Roads, Va.

“The public-private ship repair teams in Hampton Roads area have the resources and talented work force needed to make repairs to the kind of extensive structural damage seen aboard Cole,” Navy officials said. “These shipyards, however, are obviously less familiar with design and construction of Arleigh Burke class destroyers and their complex combat systems than the two shipyards that build these state-of-the-art ships, Ingalls and Bath Iron Works in Maine. The building yards are better equipped to deal with emergent work as the scope of damage becomes more apparent.”

Navy Cmdr. Greg Smith said in a statement that the damage to the Cole was unknown and Ingalls, where the destroyer was built, represented the best solution “for this unique and demanding situation.”

The 505-foot Cole is crossing the North Atlantic Ocean aboard the privately owned M/V Blue Marlin, a floating dry dock that is ferrying the stricken warship home. The Blue Marlin is a Norwegian-owned vessel.

The Navy said the land-level facility at Ingalls provides greater flexibility to deal with major structural damage than the fixed-block dry-dock facilities at Bath.

Most of the crew will be lodged at the naval bases at Norfolk, Va., but some will rotate to the Cole for shipboard duty. At Norfolk, crew will live in pre-commissioning facilities and use shore-based trainers and schools to maintain their qualifications for duty.