MARAD Takes Delivery of Fourth Training Ship, TS Lone Star State
The fourth of the new series of training ships being built for the U.S.’s state maritime academies, the TS Lone Star State, was handed over to the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) on August 21. She joins the already commissioned vessels for New York, Massachusetts, and Maine, as the first purpose-built training ships for the U.S. Merchant Marine and will be followed by the final ship, TS Golden State for California, in the coming months.
“The delivery of Lone Star State to the Texas A&M Maritime Academy marks another major milestone for the NSMV (National Security Multi-Mission Vessel) program,” said Jeff Dixon, President of TOTE Services. As the NSMV program’s Vessel Construction Manager (VCM), TOTE Services oversaw the design, construction, delivery, and warranty phases of the project, applying commercial best practices to deliver ships for the government on schedule and within budget.
Like her sisterships, the Lone Star State is a purpose-built NSMV developed to modernize the training capabilities of the nation’s state maritime academies. The vessel will serve as Texas A&M Maritime Academy’s primary training ship, preparing cadets for careers in the U.S. Merchant Marine. The ships were also designed to support federal humanitarian and disaster response missions, with a hospital and other critical capabilities.
The ships’ primary function, however, is to provide a modern platform for training for the merchant marines. In the past, the state schools had to work with outdated vessels from MARAD for the training despite them not fully reflecting the current industry. The NSMV features numerous instructional spaces, a full training bridge, modern engineering and technical systems, and has space for up to 600 cadets to train in a first-rate maritime academic environment at sea. It also has RoRo capabilities and can handle shipping containers.
Each of the ships is approximately 160 meters (525 feet) in length and approximately 8,500 dwt. They are designed for a normal berthing capacity of 760 people, which can be expanded to over 1,000 in times of humanitarian need.
Construction of the fourth vessel began with steel cutting in January 2023 at what is now the Hanwha Philly Shipyard, and the keel block was laid in December 2023. The Lone Star State was floated out in January 2025 and underwent sea trials in June 2026. Her christening took place in July in Philadelphia, and she is now expected to arrive in Galveston, Texas, in November for an official arrival ceremony and handover to Texas A&M Maritime Academy. Her first sea term is scheduled for April 2027.
Massachusetts and the Texas was using a 1967 vintage steamship for training, TS Kennedy until it was retired in September 2025 (Texas A&M)
Texas A&M Maritime has been working on an interim program for its training. In 2023, MARAD delivered the TS Kennedy, after the vessel was replaced with a new NSMV training ship for Mass Maritime. Typical of the former training ships, Kennedy had been built in 1967 as the cargo ship ss Vela Lykes. MARAD took over the ship in 1985, and it then was in the Ready Reserve Fleet and saw service during Operations Desert Storm and the Gulf War.
The former breakbulk cargo ship became a training ship in 2003, first as Enterprise, and later renamed Kennedy. It was assigned to Texas from 2023 until it was returned to MARAD in September 2025.
Texas A&M Maritime and Maine Maritime agreed to share the NSMV TS State of Maine this summer for the sea training program. Maine’s new training ship arrived in Galveston on May 17 and took aboard 218 cadets and 17 faculty and staff for the tour that went into the Caribbean and up the East Coast of the United States. The ship made an appearance at the 250th Celebration in New York Harbor before disembarking the cadets in Maine after the ship made her first arrival in Castine, Maine, on July 12.
Texas A&M Maritime is one of only six state maritime academies in the United States and the only one on the Gulf Coast. It was established in 1962.
No comments:
Post a Comment