US Shipyard To Refit Littoral Combat Ship

Vigor Shipyards has secured a multi-million dollar contract to refit U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) the USS Gabrielle Giffords.

The works will be carried out at the firm’s Seattle facility in Washington State and are scheduled to be completed by May 2026.

As per a recent U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) press statement, the value of the contract is at least $55.8 million and could rise to almost $66 million if all options are taken up.

The Independence-class LCS vessel has been in service since the middle of 2017 and has seen various deployments, including a series of patrols in the South China Sea.

In 2019 the $475 million trimaran vessel was equipped with MQ-8C Fire Scout drones and Naval Strike Missiles. The 127-metre ship has a range of more than 4,300 nautical miles and is capable of cruising at 40 knots, with a maximum speed of 47 knots.

Vigor Shipyards is owned by Vigor Industrial and operates four shipyards, three in Washington State in Seattle, Everett, and Bremerton, and a fourth in Portland, Oregon. 

Before it was acquired by Vigor Industrial these four yards were formerly run by Todd Shipyards, which has long performed building and maintenance work for the U.S. and Royal Australian Navies and the United States Coast Guard, among others.

• You can read more details about the maintenance and modernisation contract on the U.S. DoD website