What Ship Will Replace the Decommed JFK?
From NavyTimes
Navy to Release Mayport Report Soon
Posted : Tuesday Sep 30, 2008 17:30:06 EDT
The Navy’s top officer says the service is close to deciding which ships could end up at Naval Station Mayport, following the March 2007 decommissioning of the carrier John F. Kennedy.
“I think in the near term I’ll be getting … some good ideas as to what some of the options may be,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told Navy Times reporters and editors Sept. 26.
“If we’re going to make decisions, we really need to look at what, strategically, what should our lay-down be and the staff has been working on that.”
Roughead’s comments come nearly six months after a Navy study outlined 13 options for basing ships in Mayport. The Navy released the options without giving a preference, but those options ranged from doing nothing to adding a nuclear-powered carrier and seven surface ships.
When the study began in 2006, the last full year of service for the Kennedy, 22 ships were based there, with 13,272 sailors calling the area home. The naval station lists 21 ships.
With no action, that number would drop to 11 ships and 9,290 sailors by 2014, with 10 of the 13 local frigates scheduled for decommissioning starting in 2010.
The final report is expected to be published early in 2009, Navy officials say.
Local politicians, concerned over a shrinking Navy population, are holding out hope for a nuclear carrier, which would require extensive construction to make the pier nuclear-capable.
All of the Navy’s East Coast carriers are based in Norfolk, Va., and lawmakers in that region have fought efforts to send a carrier to Mayport.
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