New Wave: a Futuristic-Looking Navy Ship That’s Helping to Shape Fighting Tactics in a Post-9/11 World Docks in Miami Beach
By Alfonso Chardy, The Miami Herald
Jul. 26–Resembling an alien starship, one of the U.S. Navy’s newest vessels silently glided into Government Cut on Wednesday and docked at the Miami Beach Coast Guard Station.
Quartermaster 2nd Class Daniel Bobier of Key West helped steer the 321-foot catamaran HSV 2 Swift as it arrived for a 10-day stop. The vessel will be loaded with equipment and supplies before resuming its deployment to the Caribbean and Central America.
Bobier, 24, was one of the 40 crew members aboard the Swift — one of the world’s fastest vessels, capable of keeping up with interstate highway traffic and drawing attention as a new tool in the unpredictable dangers facing today’s military.
“If Batman had a ship, this’d be it,” said U.S. Navy Cpt. Douglas Wied, commander of the Swift’s mission. “I mean, it looks different.”
The U.S. Navy is being reconfigured from a fleet of powerful but lumbering giant surface warships to one featuring some unconventional fast-response vessels capable of deploying to crisis regions within days.
For example, when a catastrophic tsunami devastated parts of Asia in 2004, Swift reached Indonesia in only 18 days — and that included a five-day weather delay in Hawaii, Wied said.
Wied told reporters at a briefing on the ship’s air-conditioned upper deck, that Swift was part of Global Fleet Station, an evolving strategy to fight unconventional enemies from terrorists to paramilitary drug traffickers.
The Swift’s current six-month mission is taking it to various countries in Central America and the Caribbean with which the Navy is building partnerships.
“We are learning how to interoperate with them,” Wied said. “We’ve been conducting training . . . small-unit tactics.”
The Miami Beach stop marks the midpoint of the deployment.
The ship, originally designed in Australia as a modern car ferry, can travel at 45 knots or about 53 mph, burning — at full throttle — about 1,600 gallons of diesel fuel an hour in its four 9,640-hp engines.
The ship is not steered by a pilot turning a large circular helm.
Instead, three people sit at the controls: several computer and TV screens that show overhead views of the immediate area around the ship.
Bobier, for example, sat in front of a screen showing a computerized display of Government Cut, including ships passing by.
The Key West High School graduate could click on any of the ships, and a small square would appear on the screen displaying type of ship, name, destination and speed. The Swift largely steers on autopilot with preprogrammed courses.
When it docks, the Swift is steered with a joystick that can make it go sideways for parallel docking.
The Swift will remain in port until early next month. No public visits are planned.
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