The vessel honours Commander Elmer F. Stone, who made history in 1919 for being one of the two US Coast Guard pilots to successfully make the first transatlantic flight in a US Navy seaplane.

“I visited Stone before she was in the water last year, and I talked to some of the shipbuilders.You could tell that they weren’t just building a ship, they were building a Coast Guard cutter. They were building a ship that was going to do the deeds our nation needed them to do,” Coast Guard Vice Commandant Admiral Charles Ray said.

The Legend-class NSC is capable of meeting all maritime security mission needs required of the high-endurance cutter. The cutter includes an aft launch and recovery area for two rigid hull inflatable boats and a flight deck to accommodate a range of manned and unmanned rotary wing aircraft.

The future Stone will have a length of 127 metres, a range of 12,000 nautical miles, a speed of 28 knots, and a crew of 120.

Maritime Business World