Joanna Crews
Huntington Ingalls Industries‘ shipbuilding arm in Pascagoula, Mississippi, has conducted a christening ceremony Saturday for a U.S. Coast Guard Legend-class vessel.
Ingalls Shipbuilding held the ceremony at the Mississippi shipyard to transfer the National Security Cutter Midgett or WMSL 757 to the water, the company said Saturday.
The event featured Adm. Charles Michel, vice commandant of the Coast Guard, as keynote speaker and Jazania O’Neal, the ship’s sponsor and granddaughter of ship namesake John Allen Midgett, who served as a senior enlisted member of the service branch’s precursor organization.
Brian Cuccias, Ingalls Shipbuilding president, noted that Midgett is the eighth Ingalls-built Legend-class ship.
Legend-class NSCs serve as the Coast Guard’s flagship geared to support maritime homeland security, law enforcement and national security missions and designed to have a top speed of 28 knots, a range of 12,000 miles and have capability to continuously operate for 60 days and accommodate a crew of 120.
Ingalls Shipbuilding, which is the sole manufacturer of the Legend-class NSCs, has already delivered six vessels of the class and launched Midgett in November.
The company has pipelined Kimball or WMSL 756 for delivery next year.
