HSV-2 Swift
HSV-2 Swift is a non-commissioned, hybrid catamaran originally leased by the United States Navy as a mine countermeasures and sea basing test platform. She is now privately owned and operated by Sealift Inc. and chartered to the United States Navy Military Sealift Command. She is primarily used for fleet support and humanitarian partnership missions. The HSV stands for "High Speed Vessel", and its home port is Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek in Norfolk, Virginia. The vessel has two CONMAR crews that typically rotate every three months to keep the ship deployed eleven months per year. The minimum crew size is 35; 18 are military with the balance civilian, provided through American Maritime Officers and Seafarers International Union. On rare occasion that she is in a United States port, it is usually Naval Station Mayport, Florida, supporting the Fourth Fleet or Charleston, South Carolina, for major maintenance. Rota, Spain, is considered by the crew to be the "Mediterranean home away from home".
Read more about HSV-2 Swift: Construction and Acquisition, Design, Operational History, Gallery, Related Developments
Famous quotes containing the word swift:
“I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomised our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)