Ship's Background, Mission and General Information

As you may know, the HSV-2 SWIFT has a mission and background that is not typical of other ships utilized by the Navy.

The following is information provided by the Gold Crew's Officer In Charge, LCDR Mike Vecerkauskas. It offers a little insight about the SWIFT's Mission and her Background, as well as a taste of what you can expect your Sailor to be doing over the next year:

This is the 3rd version of the SWIFT program as a privately owned, US Navy leased high speed vessel.

There is a blue and gold crew that will rotate aboard approximately every 4 months. The off-ship crew has offices at Military Sealift Fleet Support Command at Naval Station Norfolk.

SWIFT has a mixed military and civilian crew, approximately 20 civilian and 20 military. The civilian mariners operate the ship and provide ship services, while the military crew executes the ship's mission for the Fleet Commander.

SWIFT has completed an owner required overhaul in Morgan City, LA and has departed on deployment to Central America.

SWIFT will be home-ported in Norfolk; however, her operating concept requires that the ship will be forward deployed often, and the crews will be flown to and from the ship in theater.

Our team is developing the foundation of how future High Speed Vessels will operate and how they will integrate into Military Sealift Command and Theater Commands.

Our current mission is to work for Commander 4th Fleet and US Southern Command to engage Caribbean and Central American countries in theater security cooperation under the Partnership of the Americas.

We will relieve the Blue Crew on station in the Dominican Republic at the end of February.

We will have embarked staff and training teams that will work with partner nations in training maritime forces in naval operations.

Your sailor will routinely see ports that few US Navy ships ever visit and engage foreign military and civilians at all levels during our port visits. Our primary mission is "engagement" as "goodwill ambassadors", to build teamwork and cooperation between the US and regional countries.

Our next mission is to US Africa Command, executing theater engagement, security cooperation missions, and training as part of the Africa Partnership Station along the coast of West Africa.

Between our deployments SWIFT will undergo a 60 day shipyard period for additional upgrades and improvements.