HSV-2 Swift is a hybrid catamaran. She was privately owned and operated by Sealift, and was originally built under the JHSV program as a proof of concept. As part of this program, she was directly leased for evaluation from her builder Incat by the United States Navy Military Sealift Command from 2003 to 2013, primarily as a mine countermeasures and sea basing test platform. Later during her official naval career she was mostly used for fleet support and humanitarian partnership missions. In July 2015, the ship was leased by the United Arab Emirates National Marine Dredging Company and was used to carry aid through the Bab Al Mandab strait. On 1 October 2016, the ship was attacked and damaged off the coast of Yemen by Iranian-backed rebel Houthis, who at the time claimed to have sunk the ship. According to unnamed Department of Defense officials, the ship was damaged and was being towed to Eritrea. The vessel sustained serious damage to its bow, but remained afloat.
Design and description The ship is a wave-piercing, aluminum-hulled, commercial catamaran with military enhancements, such as a helicopter flight deck, vehicle deck, small boat and unmanned vehicle launch and recovery capability, and a communications suite. She features a new, modular design, which will allow her to be refitted to support missions without requiring long shipyard periods. While from the front the vessel looks like a trimaran, the center hull does not rest in the water and is not used for buoyancy. As a logistics vessel, the ship does not have water-tight compartments or weapons systems. Propulsion is provided by directional water jets, so the ship does not have propellers or a rudder for steering, and can maneuver in 3.7 m (12 ft) of water. The HSV stands for "High Speed Vessel", and her home port while chartered as a MSC vessel was Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Virginia. The vessel had two CONMAR crews that typically rotated every three months to keep the ship deployed eleven months per year. The minimum crew size is 35; during her time with the MSC 18 were military with the balance civilian, provided through American Maritime Officers and Seafarers International Union of the United States Merchant Marine. On rare occasion that she was in a United States port, it was usually Naval Station Mayport, Florida, supporting the Fourth Fleet or Charleston, South Carolina, for major maintenance. Rota, Spain, was considered by the crew to be the "Mediterranean home away from home.
Construction and acquisition The ship was constructed by Incat in Hobart, Australia, and was leased to the United States Navy through Bollinger/Incat of Lockport, Louisiana. She was the second catamaran the navy leased to test new technologies and concepts associated with the Chief of Naval Operations's Sea Power 21 plan. The contract value for the first year was $21.7 million. Swift was the fourth Incat-built high-speed wave piercing catamaran to enter military service, following behind HMAS Jervis Bay, United States Army Vessel (USAV) Theater Support Vessel Spearhead and USS Joint Venture.
US flagged service The first ship of this class to be used by the Navy, Joint Venture (HSV-X1), proved her military mettle during the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a forward staging platform for Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorism and United States Navy SEAL teams in the shallow waters of Umm Qasr, Iraq. The Navy hoped to build upon lessons learned from Swift and her predecessor, and eventually use the information to create a new class of littoral combat ships. In the autumn of 2003, while operating with the Fifth Fleet, Swift completed the fastest-ever transit of the northern Great Barrier Reef from Cairns to Booby Island, Australia, averaging slightly over 39 knots (72 km/h). During flight deck certifications, Swift's crew conducted aircraft recovery while making 43 knots (80 km/h) during one recovery and had 66-knot (122 km/h) apparent winds during another recovery. In November 2003 she began West African Training Cruise-04. She first visited the South African Navy (SAN) base at Durban on 3 November 2003. She then exercised with the SAN and the South African Air Force off Simon's Town in the Western Cape. As of early November 2003, as reported by Jane's Defence Weekly on 19 November 2003, exercises were also planned with Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. Swift had embarked a small United States Marine Corps (USMC) detachment for the cruise, 'which will draw on Norway Air-Landed Marine Expeditionary Brigade equipment for the exercises.' The Jane's Defence Weekly story said that Marine reservists will practice with the NALMEB (Norway Air-Landed Marine Expeditionary Brigade) equipment, and the cruise would also be used to evaluate an experimental lightweight ROWPU that was at that time being tested by the USMC warfighting laboratory. The vessel returned in early 2004. In 2004, the United States Navy tested the Australian built Swift in the multinational exercise RIMPAC.
In January 2005, Swift was tapped to provide logistical assistance during the tsunami relief effort in North Sumatra. Swift departed Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, on 3 January 2005. Swift was in Pearl Harbor 15 January 2005, on the way to provide assistance following the tsunami. The ship arrived in Singapore on 30 January 2005, Belawan, Indonesia 3 February 2005 and Sattahip, Thailand, on 7 February 2005. Prior to arriving in the tsunami affected region, crews were swapped in Pearl Harbor, with Gold crew relieving Blue crew in less than eight hours. Swift embarked a helicopter detachment, and served as a base of operations for two helicopters and their crew for 30 consecutive days at sea. During the operation, Swift sailed for 30 straight days, supported a helicopter detachment and support crew and conducted two underway replenishments.
In 2005, Swift played a major role in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. With most roads inaccessible along the Gulf Coast, Swift and her crew delivered the necessary supplies by water, traversing the Mississippi River multiple times hauling humanitarian aid between Pensacola, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana. During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Swift was used to transport humanitarian assistance materials from Cyprus to Beirut.
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