Mary-Louise Hoffman
Huntington Ingalls Industries‘ shipbuilding arm has handed the national security cutter Hamilton to the U.S Coast Guard nearly three months ahead of its scheduled commissioning.
The Coast Guard officially took possession of the 418-foot-long NSC Hamilton on Monday and is slated to commission the ship in Charleston, South Carolina on Dec. 6, HII said Monday.
Ingalls Shipbuilding completed testing on the vessel’s propulsion, anchor, steering and weapon systems last month.
The business has built and delivered three NSCs and is currently building three more for the service, according to HII.
NSCs are designed to sail up to 12,000 nautical miles at 28 knots and has a rigid hull inflatable boat launch and recovery area as well as a flight deck for manned and unmanned rotary-wing aircraft.
