Lebanon: Catamaran to the Rescue

The U.S. Navy’s evac­u­a­tion of Lebanon is done. Now, the focus is on deliv­er­ing human­i­tar­ian aid to the Lebanese. At the cen­ter of the effort: the Navy’s giant, super-quick cata­ma­ran.
Until recently, the exper­i­men­tal, Australian-built HSV-2 Swift was work­ing as a mine war­fare com­mand and con­trol ship. But with “its enor­mous 28,000 square foot mis­sion deck, the abil­ity to tra­verse lit­toral waters, the capa­bil­ity of han­dling speeds in excess of 40 knots, and maneu­ver­abil­ity that doesn’t require tug­boat assis­tance,” as Navy Newsstand notes, the cata­ma­ran was a nat­ural for the Lebanese oper­a­tion. “The ves­sel has the cargo space of about 17 C-17 air­craft and the access of a Cyclone-class patrol boat,” said Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Pournelle, exec­u­tive offi­cer of Swift’s Gold Crew.
And it’s not the 318-foot catamaran’s first human­i­tar­ian mis­sion. Back in January, 2005, the Swift sped to Southeast Asia, to deliver aid to tsunami vic­tims. In September, it brought sup­plies to the Gulf Coast in the wake of hur­ri­cane Katrina. The Swift’s pre­de­ces­sor helped sneak SEAL teams into south­ern Iraq dur­ing the 2003 inva­sion.
The “wave-piercing, aluminum-hulled cata­ma­ran,” orig­i­nally designed as a com­mer­cial ves­sel, now comes with mil­i­tary enhance­ments, “such as a heli­copter flight deck, small boat and unmanned vehi­cle launch and recov­ery capa­bil­ity, and an enhanced com­mu­ni­ca­tions suite,” the Navy says.
But it’s the catamaran’s abil­ity to quickly get to an from ports — with­out help — that Navy lead­ers seem to find most attractive.

[Just before the Lebanese mis­sion] “on the after­noon of July 11, Swift left Bahrain’s Mina Salman pier with a shipload of cargo des­tined for USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) moored at Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates. Twelve hours later, the Navy-leased cata­ma­ran arrived along­side Supply, ready to off-load.
“The cargo was only touched twice,” said Swift’s Commanding Officer, Cmdr. Rob Morrison. “[Normally] we’d have to load a truck with the cargo, off-load it at the air­port, load it back onto an air­craft, fly it to its des­ti­na­tion, off-load it, and move it by truck to the ship, where it’s deliv­ered to the ship and finally loaded aboard…”
Upon arrival, Swift’s crew had the cargo loaded onto the flight deck, thus allow­ing Supply’s crane imme­di­ate access to the pal­leted goods. Within an hour, the trans­fer was com­plete.

UPDATE 07/25/06 9:35 PM: HSV-maker Incat is also work­ing on a funky heavy­weight ele­va­tor for the cata­ma­ran. It’s designed to take copters up to the flight deck, or lower amphibi­ous vehi­cles straight in the water, between the ship’s twin hulls. “Sounds like a per­fect way to
deploy a Marine pla­toon or com­pany for quick-response mis­sions like
embassy evac­u­a­tions and small raids,” reader JG says.

July 24th, 2006 | Ships and Subs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.