Navy Shipbuilder Calls Littoral Combat Ship 'the Sexiest Thing' It Has Produced

The Littoral Combat Ship has had its full share of issues, but Austal Ltd. founder John Rothwell still thinks the Independence Class is “the sexiest thing we’ve done.”

The comment came as Rothwell last week visited the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile with new company chairman Richard Spencer. The two answered a variety of serious questions, and one very silly one: If they each could have one Austal vessel as their personal yacht, what would it be?

Rothwell initially demurred. Austal Ltd. actually built yachts in the early 2000s before shifting into commercial and military work. “I have been at the wheel of one of our yachts and then realized that yacht building wasn’t real good for us,” he said. “I did have a yacht for a period of time. I’m not now a yacht-type person. I think it’s a different world and it’s not one that I enjoy any longer.”

“I’m a keen scuba diver and I can do that, I can go out in a rigid inflatable, you know,” he said. “I’ve still got a boat at home but it’s not what we’d call a yacht. It’s maybe 55 feet or something or other.”

But if he could pick anything from the Austal catalog to be his new superyacht, what would it be?

“So, the LCS is by far the sexiest thing we’ve done,” he said.

For him, it seems, the angular aluminum waterjet-driven trimaran remains a symbol of how far his company has come. And there’s a specific moment attached to that: In July 2023 the U.S. Navy commissioned LCS 30 as the USS Canberra at a ceremony in Sydney, Australia. It was the first U.S. Navy vessel in history to be commissioned outside the United States.

“For me personally to see an LCS that was initially designed from one of our commercial ferries, and developed into a military vessel with U.S. Navy money, to see one sailing through the Heads of Sydney [the headlands at the entrance of Sydney’s harbor) was a big moment for me,” he said. “It was named USS Canberra and it was escorted in by HMAS Canberra. It was just, for me, it was really almost the ultimate.”

Spencer’s fantasy yacht pick was a smidge more practical: He went with the Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF), seeing in its multipurpose catamaran design some kinship to a type of vessel popular on American waterways.

“Growing up on a lake, we had pontoon boats,” said Spencer. “So I have to go with the EPF. It’s just a huge party boat.”

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