Mobile’s Alabama Shipyard wins USD 30 million refit contract for work on the hospital ship USNS Comfort
The USN’s hospital ship USNS Comfort is to undergo a 156-day USD 30 million refit at Mobile’s Alabama Shipyard (Source: USN)
Mobile-based ship repairer Alabama Shipyard has secured a USD 30.1 million, fixed-price contract for the 156-day shipyard availability for the regular overhaul and drydocking of the hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20).
One of two hospital ships in the US Navy’s fleet, USNS Comfort is also one of the oldest vessels in the fleet still in service, having been built originally as a crude oil tanker in 1974 and is steam turbine powered.
This contract includes a base work package and five unexercised options for additional work, and time, that, if exercised, would increase the contract value to USD 30.9 million.
Work on USNS Comfort will start at the Mobile ship repair yard on August 1st and is scheduled to be completed by January 3rd in 2025.
USNS Comfort is a sistership of USNS Mercy (T-AH 19). Both 70,470-ton displacement vessels were built by San Diego’s NASSCO shipyard as the San Clemente-class crude oil tankers in 1974 and 1978 and were subsequently converted by the same shipyard into hospital ships for the US Navy, operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) in 1985. USNS Comfort was originally named Rose City.
USNS Comfort is homeported in Naval Station Norfolk and provides rapid, flexible and mobile medical and surgical services to support US Marine Corps, Air-Ground Task Forces and US Army and US Air Force units deployed ashore, and Naval Amphibious Task Forces and Naval Forces afloat.
The vessel’s secondary role is to provide mobile surgical hospital services for appropriate US government agencies in disaster, humanitarian relief, or limited humanitarian care incidents to those involved in peacetime military operations.
USNS Comfort, and her sister, are more advanced than a field hospital, but less capable than a traditional shoreside hospital and offer 1,000 beds and a naval medical staff of 956 personnel.
US Navy thinking on what hospital ships should do has changed a great deal since these two vessels were converted and last year US East Coast shipbuilder Philly was awarded a contract by naval architects Gibbs & Cox to conduct the T-AH (X) Hospital Ship Feasibility study, covering a solution for preliminary designs to replace the USN’s current two hospital ships.
Meanwhile, undergoing repair at Alabama Shipyard on May 30th was the MSC-operated 44,543gt dry cargoship USNS SGT. William R. Button (T-AK-3012).
