Navy's high-speed vessel aids relief effort.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: INTO THE SHALLOWS

Among the flotilla of U.S. Navy ships delivering relief supplies to the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast earlier this fall was a strange-looking vessel that may have a big future.

The ship was the HSV-2 Swift, which may be a forerunner of a next-generation fleet of fast, shallow-draft American-built transports capable of operating close along the shorelines of the world's hot spots.

The Swift is a high-speed vessel built by Incat Tasmania Pty Ltd., of Hobart, Australia, and leased to the Navy in 2003 by Incat and its U.S. partner, Bollinger Shipyards, of Lockport, La. The first-year value of the lease was $21.7 million. The lease can be extended to four years and 11 months if all options are exercised.

The Swift's role in the recovery effort was to help re-supply other Navy ships in the Gulf Coast area, Navy Capt. Patricia Sudol told National Defense. She is program manager for sealift, special missions, small boats and craft at the Naval Sea Systems Command, headquartered at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

"The Swift is being employed as a small shuttle ship to replenish larger, deeper-draft combat logistics ships that do not have the capability right now to get into certain ports," Sodol said.

"This enabled the USS Artic, for example, to remain on station, providing provisions to the other ships supporting the hurricane relief effort." Those included the USS Bataan (LHD-5), USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), USS Shreveport (LPD-12), Tortuga (LSD-26) and USS Grapple (ARS-53).

During the transfer of supplies, the Swift went "skin-to-skin" with the larger vessels, Sodol said. "Approximately 175 pallets were craned off the flight deck."

Originally built as a car ferry, the Swift is a wave-piercing catamaran, a two-hulled, multi-decked craft with the length of a football field. She has a mission bay with 15,500 square feet of vehicle and module space. Her crane can launch and recover small boats. Her vehicle ramp is sturdy enough to accommodate M1A1Abrams tanks. A 4,000-square-foot flight deck has an adjacent hangar for two MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters. She can carry up to up to 250 combat-equipped Marines resting in airliner-style seats and up to 605 tons of cargo.

Propelled by four sets of Caterpillar 3618 marine diesel engines, gas turbines and water jets, she can cruise at a top speed in excess of 45 knots.

Yet the Swift's aluminum hull draws only 11.15 feet of water. This allows her to operate in the shallow coastal waters of the Gulf of...