Meeting the Fleet 2022 B

I’m just observing, not criticizing, but the vessel turnout in 2022 seems quite small. I understand that lots of other things are happening globally.   Following USS Bataan, USCGC Sycamore (WLB-209) and HMS Protector (A-173) arrive.  They are both about 20 years in service and have both done assignments in the Arctic.

Sycamore made a run up to the GW before turning around. I saw her here in the sixth boro just over a year ago.

Protector did not begin life as a UK Royal Navy ice patrol vessel.  Rather, it was built as the 2001 Polarbjørn in Lithuania for GC Rieber, a Norwegian company based in Bergen, a port I visited way back in 1985, on one of my early gallivants.  Unfortunately, in those days I traveled sans camera.

 

 

USCGC Dependable (WMEC-626) built at AmShip in Lorain OH and commissioned in 1968,  is over the midcentury mark and still at work.  AmShip Lorain-closed since the early 1980s-  built some icons, several of their lakers still very much in active service.

 

Most of the medium endurance cutters of Dependable‘s cohort-Reliance class– are still in service, either in the US or elsewhere.

 

 

USS Milwaukee (LCS-5) was commissioned in 2015.   Like Sycamore and Dependable, she was built on the Great Lakes

Four years ago here, I visited the Marinette Shipyard town where Milwaukee came into existence. Some products of Marinette include Sycamore–above–and Ellen McAllister, also involved in Wednesday’s parade into the sixth boro. Katherine Walker, part of the welcoming committee Wednesday, is another Marinette product, as are some of the current Staten island ferries (Molinari class) and some ATBs, like Brandywine and Christiana that pass through the port now and then.

 

As Milwaukee steamed upriver, she slowed and spun a 180 turn much faster than I imagined possible for a 378′ vessel.   I wish I’d been on shore just off her improvised turning basin when she did so. Was anyone there and can send photos?

A sister of Milwaukee, USS Duluth (LCS 21) was commissioned in her namesake city only earlier this week.

All photos, WVD, who hopes to get in some more Fleet Week sights this weekend.  If you’re reading this and arrived in the sixth boro–aka the primary boro–of NYC, welcome.