US Navy christens 1st in a class of new towing, salvage and rescue ships

The US Navy has christen the first Navajo-class towing, salvage, and rescue ship, the future USNS Navajo (T-ATS 6).

As informed, the ceremony was held in Houma, Louisiana on 26 August. The future USNS Navajo is the first ship in its class and will be operated by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command.

The vessels will replace the existing Powhatan-class T-ATF fleet ocean tugs and Safeguard-class T-ARS rescue and salvage ships in service with the U.S. Military Sealift Command.

The Navajo-class is a new series of towing, salvage and rescue ships (T-ATS) being constructed for the U.S. Navy.

The Navajo-class is a multi-mission common hull platform that will be deployed to support a range of missions such as towing, rescue, salvage, humanitarian assistance, oil spill response and wide-area search and surveillance operations using unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).