water in the engine room. After initial attempts to get the ship off the rock failed, her crew began off-loading supplies and set kedge anchors to stabilize the cruiser and prevent further damage to her bottom. The collier arrived that evening and was sent to San Diego to send word of the incident to Japanese authorities as Asama was powerless and Lena lacked a radio. The armored cruiser , flagship of the squadron commander Rear Admiral Moriyama Keizaburo, arrived on 12 February and he requested the immediate dispatch of salvage and repair ships. The protected cruiser and the supply ship arrived on 18 March and they were followed the next day by Asamas sister, , and the repair ship Kamakura Maru. Vice Admiral Tochinai Sojiro, who arrived aboard Tokiwa, relieved Moriyama who was due to return home. Salvage efforts began in earnest with the arrival of the repair ship Kantō on 24 March which brought over 250 shipwrights from the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal to assist. By 14 April over of material had been removed from the cruiser and further investigation showed that the forward boiler room had a hole by and the hole in the aft boiler room measured by . It was no wonder that, given the state of the ship's bottom, pumping overboard of water was not enough to empty the ship of water. On 8 May the ship was successfully refloated at high tide, but she required three more months of work before she could be considered minimally sea worthy. Asama tested her watertight integrity on 21 August outside the bay and she departed at a speed of for the British naval base at Esquimalt, British Columbia, two days later for temporary repairs, escorted by Chitose and Kantō. During the voyage the ship still had to pump some per hour. The repairs in Esquimalt reduced this figure to a mere per hour after the cruiser sailed for Yokosuka on 23 October. She arrived on 18 December and Emperor Taishō received her officers in the Imperial Palace two days later. Permanent repairs, which included the replacement of her boilers by 16 Miyabara water-tube boilers and the removal of her bow torpedo tube, were not completed until March 1917, Asama served as the flagship of Destroyer Squadron (Suiraisentai) 2 from 13 April to 4 August before she was transferred to the Training Squadron on 25 August. Together with Iwate,