USS Rainier to be decommissioned end of August
The move is part of the Navy's cost-cutting efforts, said Lisa Rama, spokeswoman with Naval Station Bremerton.
The fast combat support ship will become a military-owned, civilian-operated vessel under the Military Sealift Command, or MSC. Instead of a Navy crew of 600, the Rainier will have a merchant marine crew of 179, with 26 military personnel aboard to handle communications.
The mission remains the same: delivering food, cargo, stores and ammunition to Navy and coalition ships.
The Rainier is the first of four Bremerton-based fast combat support ships that will leave Navy ownership in the coming decade, eliminating 2,400 local Navy jobs.
When transferred to MSC, the support ship will take the designation of USNS Rainier, meaning United States Naval Ship.
The crew size on an MSC ship is usually a fraction of the size of a Navy crew because the MSC crew is made up of veteran mariners who don't require training.
The transition began this week with a change-of-command ceremony aboard the ship at Bremerton.
The Rainier's home port will remain Bremerton, but the ship will likely spend little time here, as MSC ships frequently spend the large portion of the year at sea. And few of its merchant marine crew will live where the ship is homeported; they typically live elsewhere and fly out to their respective ship when called upon.
During the Rainier's recent seven-month deployment to the Middle East, it completed 244 replenishments of coalition ships, including 91 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.