Mobile-based shipbuilder Austal USA christened on Saturday the company’s first steel ship, the future USNS Billy Frank Jr., which will serve the U.S. Navy as its sixth Towing, Salvage and Rescue Ship (T-ATS).
T-ATS will be a multi-mission common hull platform capable of towing U.S. Navy ships and will have 6,000 square feet of deck space for embarked systems. The large, unobstructed deck allows for the embarkation of a variety of stand-alone and interchangeable systems.
T-ATS will be able to support current missions including towing, salvage, rescue, oil spill response, humanitarian assistance, and wide-area search and surveillance. The platform also enables future rapid capability initiatives such as supporting modular payloads.
The ship’s namesake, Billy Frank Jr., was a member of the Nisqually Indian Tribe and a Korean War veteran where he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Frank, from the state of Washington, later became an activist who fought for justice and environmental preservation. During his distinguished career, he served as chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission for almost three decades and was honored with numerous awards, including the Common Cause Award for Human Rights Efforts, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism, the American Indian Distinguished Service Award, the 2006 Wallace Stegner Award, and the Washington State Environmental Excellence Award.
He was posthumously named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2015.
Ship sponsor Peggen Frank christened the ship by breaking a champagne bottle over the bow in front of hundreds of guests, including Brett Seidle, assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (acting); Rear Admiral Thomas Anderson, USN, Program Executive Officer Ships; Rear Admiral Mark Haigis, USN, deputy commander, Military Sealift Command; and ship namesake representative the Honorable William Frank III (son of Billy Frank Jr.)
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