HSV 2 Swift Departs for Southern Partnership Station 2010

By By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Robert A. Wood Sr., U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command and U.S. 4th Fleet Public Affairs.

May 6, 2010 - MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- MAYPORT, Fla. – High Speed Vessel Swift (HSV 2), along with various embarked Navy and Marine Corps units, departed Naval Station Mayport May 5 for a five-month deployment for Southern Partnership Station (SPS) 2010.

While in port, Swift received 140 Project Handclasp pallets and two fire engines. The Wisconsin National Guard State Partnership Program donated the fire engines to Project Handclasp for transportation to Nicaragua, their partner nation.

Project Handclasp is a U.S. Navy program that accepts and transports educational, humanitarian and goodwill material on a space-available basis aboard U.S. Navy ships for distribution to foreign nation recipients.

SPS is an annual deployment of various specialty platforms to the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility (AOR) in the Caribbean and Latin America. The mission's primary goal is information sharing with navies, coast guards, and civilian services throughout the region.

A compliment of U.S. Navy Sailors and Marines embarked on Swift will conduct training and subject matter expert (SME) exchanges with partner nations in the USSOUTHCOM AOR. During the SPS deployment, Swift will visit Barbados, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Suriname.

COMUSNAVSO is the naval component command for USSOUTHCOM and is responsible for all naval personnel and assets in the AOR. COMUSNAVSO conducts a variety of missions in support of the U.S. Maritime Strategy, including Theater Security Cooperation, relationship building, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, community relations, and counter-illicit trafficking operations.