As the sun rose Friday morning in Mobile, the last of 19 Littoral Combat Ships built by Austal USA stood ready for its final departure.
The moment could be described as the end of an era for the city. But there was no fanfare to the scene, as witnessed from the National Maritime Museum. Across the Mobile River from the museum and Mobile’s Cruise Terminal, a tug assisted as the angular gray trimaran backed away from the docks at Austal’s Vessel Completion Yard and pivoted slightly to starboard. Then the tug stood off as the bigger ship proceeded downriver toward Mobile Bay and the open waters beyond.
It was April 2008 when Austal launched LCS-2, the namesake of the Independence class, and March 2010 when that ship left its birthplace behind. At the time, Austal had a workforce of about 1,000. Driven largely by the LCS program, that would swell to a peak of about 4,500 in the years to come.
The LCS program, including both the Independence class manufactured by Austal and the Freedom Class built elsewhere, had its share of teething problems, including cost overruns and finicky propulsion systems, and its share of detractors. The Independence and the second ship in its class, the USS Coronado, already have been decommissioned…