October 10, 2019, by navaltoday

Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries launched USCG Stone (WMSL 758), the US Coast Guard’s ninth national security cutter (NSC), on October 4.

Stone was launched after a keel-laying ceremony in September 2018. It is scheduled for delivery in fiscal year 2021.

Stone’s launch also comes a little over a month after the coast guard held a dual-commissioning ceremony for the seventh and eighth ships in the class.

The ship is named in honor of former US Coast Guard commander Elmer “Archie” Fowler Stone. Stone became a cadet at the Revenue Cutter Service School of Instruction on April 28, 1910. On April 10, 1917, he became the Coast Guard’s first aviator upon graduating from flight training at Pensacola, Fla. In 1919 Stone was one of two pilots to successfully make a transatlantic flight in a US Navy seaplane, NC-4. Stone died of a heart attack on May 20, 1936, while inspecting a new patrol plane at the Air Patrol Detachment in San Diego.

NSCs are 418 feet (127 m) long with a 54-foot beam and displace 4,500 tons with a full load. They have a top speed of 28 knots, a range of 12,000 miles, an endurance of 60 days and a crew of 120.