The construction began on the US Navy’s newest towing, salvage and rescue ship, T-ATS 12, on 30 January, US-base shipbuilder Austal revealed.
The Navajo-class (T-ATS) provides ocean-going tug, salvage, and rescue capabilities to support fleet operations. T-ATS replaces and fulfills the capabilities that were previously provided by the Fleet Ocean Tug (T-ATF 166) and Rescue and Salvage Ships (T-ARS 50) class ships.
With production now underway, T-ATS 12 becomes the second steel ship in production at Austal USA’s Mobile, Alabama shipyard.
Navajo-class ships will be Multi Mission Common Hull Platforms based on commercial offshore Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessels.
T-ATS supports current missions including, but not limited to: towing, salvage, rescue, oil spill response, humanitarian assistance and wide area search and surveillance. They also enable future rapid capability initiatives, supporting modular payloads with hotel services and appropriate interfaces.
In July last year, Austal started construction of T-ATS 11. The firm received a contract worth 144 million for a detailed design and construction of T-ATS.