Courtesy / General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
Sandy Haley
Updated: December 2, 2020
BIW starts building new Burke-class Navy destroyer
Courtesy / General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works on Monday fired up its burning machine to cut the first steel for a new Navy destroyer.
By Staff
General Dynamics Bath Iron Works started fabrication of the future USS William Charette (DDG 130) on Monday, at the shipyard's structural fabrication facility in East Brunswick.
The Charette will be the 43rd Arleigh Burke-class destroyer built for the U.S. Navy by BIW, which launched the first one in 1989. Over 60 of the 500-foot guided missile warships are now in service.
The new ship will also be the second Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer to start construction at BIW. Advancements in radar and combat systems make the Flight III Arleigh Burkes the most technologically advanced surface combatant in the world, BIW said in a news release.
Longtime BIW employees Sandy Haley and Randy Bertrand activated the burning machine to cut the first steel for the ship. Haley is a master shipbuilder with 40 years of service at BIW. Bertrand has been at BIW for 32 years. Both have worked extensively in the park cutting lanes at the structural fabrication facility.
“The Navy is counting on us to get the shipyard back on schedule and starting construction of DDG 130 is an important step in that direction,” Dirk Lesko, president of Bath Iron Works, said in the release.
“I appreciate the effort everyone is putting into keeping one another safe and healthy as we move forward together.”
The ship is named for William Charette, a Navy master chief hospital corpsman, who earned the Medal of Honor during the Korean War. Charette repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while treating injured Marines during fighting to retake a strategic hill on March 27, 1953, even after he incurred a head injury that left him temporarily blinded.
Courtesy / General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
Randy Bertrand
Bath Iron Works is a business unit of Virginia-based defense contractor General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).
The project started three months after BIW settled a bitter dispute and strike with its largest labor union,
Last month, the shipyard received a contract modification from the Navy worth $146.1 million that calls for BIW to continue providing design, planning and material support services for maintenance and modernization of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
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