Keel laid for US Navy salvage ship Muscogee Creek Nation

Bollinger Shipyards of Houma, Louisiana laid the keel of the US Navy’s tenth Navajo-class towing, salvage and rescue ship (T-ATS) in a ceremony on Wednesday, March 20.

The future USNS Muscogee Creek Nation honours the self-governed Native American tribe located in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

The Navajo-class T-ATS will provide ocean-going tug, salvage, and rescue capabilities to support fleet operations. It will replace and fulfill the capabilities that were previously provided by the US Navy’s Powhatan-class fleet ocean tug (T-ATF 166) and Safeguard-class rescue and salvage Ships (T-ARS 50) class ships.

As with its sisters, the future Muscogee Creek Nation will be built as a multi-mission 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 (UUVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Another four T-ATS are in various stages of construction at Bollinger Shipyards.