Austal Awarded Construction Contract for JHSV 8 and 9

The U.S. Navy has exer­cised con­tract options fund­ing the con­struc­tion of the eighth and ninth Joint High Speed Ves­sel (JHSV), as part of a ten-ship pro­gram poten­tial­ly worth over US$1.6 bil­lion. The con­struc­tion con­tract for these ves­sels is val­ued at approx­i­mate­ly US$321.7 mil­lion.

Austal USA’s Pres­i­dent and Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer Joe Rel­la com­ment­ed “The Navy’s grow­ing con­fi­dence in Austal and the JHSV pro­gram becomes more evi­dent with each new con­tract award. Austal will con­tin­ue to reward our cus­tomer with improved effi­cien­cy evi­denced in our con­tin­ued on-time deliv­ery of high-qual­i­ty, afford­able ships.” 

As prime con­trac­tor, Austal was award­ed the con­struc­tion con­tract for the first 103-meter JHSV in Novem­ber 2008, with options for nine addi­tion­al ves­sels between FY09 and FY13. The Austal JHSV team includes plat­form sys­tems engi­neer­ing agent Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Advanced Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems who is respon­si­ble for the design, inte­gra­tion and test of the ship’s mis­sion sys­tems, includ­ing inter­nal and exter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions, elec­tron­ic nav­i­ga­tion, and avi­a­tion and arma­ment systems. 

Austal received autho­riza­tion from the Navy to start con­struc­tion on the first ves­sel of the con­tract, USNS Spear­head (JHSV 1), in Decem­ber 2009 after com­plet­ing the rig­or­ous design in a 12-month peri­od. USNS Spear­head is sched­uled for builder’s sea tri­als in ear­ly March. Choctaw Coun­ty (JHSV 2) is tak­ing shape in Austal’s final assem­bly bay and mod­ules for JHSV 3 are being con­struct­ed in the Mod­ule Man­u­fac­tur­ing Facil­i­ty; offi­cial keel lay­ing is sched­uled for April 12. 

Austal USA employs over 2,600 high­ly qual­i­fied ship­builders, engi­neers and sup­port staff and is steadi­ly grow­ing towards 4,000 employ­ees. Austal also recent­ly chris­tened a sec­ond Inde­pen­dence-vari­ant 127-meter Lit­toral Com­bat Ship (LCS) for the U.S. Navy, Coro­n­a­do (LCS 4), which is prepar­ing for builder’s tri­als. As prime con­trac­tor, Austal received a U.S. Navy con­tract for con­struc­tion of up to an addi­tion­al 10 Lit­toral Com­bat Ships, includ­ing Jack­son (LCS 6) and Mont­gomery (LCS 8), to be appro­pri­at­ed in the fol­low­ing five years, with a total val­ue in excess of $3.5 bil­lion. Once com­mis­sioned, these 10 ships will join the Austal-built USS Inde­pen­dence (LCS 2) which was com­mis­sioned in Jan­u­ary 2010. 

Fur­ther Information

Con­tact: Austal
Phone: 61 8 9410 1111
Fax: 61 8 9410 2564
Email: pubrel@austal.com

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