NSC Kimball, the U.S. Coast Guard’s seventh national security cutter, was launched at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on December 17.
The launching ceremony took place just days after the service received the sixth cutter USCGC Munro ahead of its commissioning in Seattle on April 1, 2017.
The seventh NSC’s christening will take place in March 2017, with delivery scheduled for 2018.
Kimball will be the first NSC stationed in Honolulu.
The cutter is named after Sumner Kimball, who was appointed chief of the Treasury Department’s Revenue Marine Division in 1871. Kimball established a training school for young officers, which would later develop into the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and reformed the revenue cutter service. After organizing the nation’s network of volunteer lifesaving stations into the U.S. Life-Saving Service, he served as general superintendent until it merged with the Revenue Cutter Service to become the modern Coast Guard in 1915.
The 418-foot cutters are replacing the 378-foot high endurance cutters, which have been in service since the 1960s.
Five NSCs are in service, with three in Alameda, California, and two in Charleston, South Carolina. The sixth NSC, Munro, will also be based in Alameda. The eighth NSC, Midgett, will be stationed in Honolulu and is scheduled for delivery in 2019.