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USNS Grapple (T-ARS 53)

USS GRAPPLE was the last ship in the SAFEGUARD-class and the second ship in the Navy to bear the name. On July 13, 2006, the USS GRAPPLE was transfered to the Military Sealift Command and was subsequently operated by a civilian crew. Deactivated on October 1, 2016, the GRAPPLE is presently held in reserve at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Penn.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS / USNS GRAPPLE. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS / USNS GRAPPLE History:

USS GRAPPLE was laid down at Peterson Builders, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, on April 25, 1984, launched on December 8, 1984, and commissioned on November 15, 1986. After fitting out and trials on the Great Lakes and in the North Atlantic, she arrived at her first home port, Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia, on December 19, 1986, beginning the routine of upkeep, crew certification, and local towing, diving and firefighting drills that would define her early months. Through 1987, she refined core rescue-and-salvage skills - heavy-lift rigging, dewatering, patching, and hyperbaric-chamber operations - before her first extended assignment overseas.

On September 6, 1987, in the context of the Iran-Iraq War's "Tanker War" and U.S. convoy operations under Operation Earnest Will, GRAPPLE departed Little Creek in company with the AGGRESSIVE-class minesweepers USS FEARLESS (MSO 442), USS ILLUSIVE (MSO 448), and USS INFLICT (MSO 456) for service in the Middle East. The four-ship formation transited the Atlantic and the Suez Canal and reached the Gulf of Oman on November 2, 1987. The deployment placed the ship squarely inside the broader U.S. and allied effort to keep oil shipping lanes open amid persistent Iranian minelaying and attacks on merchant traffic. During and after delivery, GRAPPLE continued regional towing and standby salvage duties while the MSOs began clearing suspected mine lines across key approaches to the Persian Gulf.

In mid-September 1988, while NATO's large-scale Teamwork '88 exercise stressed allied logistics and amphibious operations in Norway, the tank landing ship USS BOULDER (LST 1190) grounded on a shoal off the Norwegian coast. GRAPPLE was tasked to assist the recovery. Working with Norwegian tugs, she helped re-float the ship and mitigate pollution from a small fuel spill, an operation that underlined the class's role as an immediate-response asset for peacetime mishaps during high-tempo exercises in challenging waters. She followed with routine towing, diver training and salvage support tasks around the Atlantic and Mediterranean as the Cold War wound down.

From 1990 into 1991-1992, GRAPPLE periodically deployed with the U.S. Sixth Fleet as the theater's dedicated rescue-and-salvage ship, cycling between local training along the U.S. East Coast and extended Mediterranean assignments. Typical work included harbor clearances, anchor-handling and heavy-gear recovery for combatants operating from forward logistics hubs. Among those tasks, she recovered a deep-sunk section of the anchor chain for the cruiser USS HARRY E. YARNELL (CG 17) off Augusta Bay, Sicily, and conducted pier-side and at-sea diver support for allied units. Port logistics stops during these periods commonly included Augusta Bay and Souda Bay to stage divers, equipment and fuel for short-notice tasking from Sixth Fleet.

On July 17, 1996, a civil aviation disaster off Long Island abruptly redirected U.S. Navy salvage resources. In late July, GRAPPLE joined sister ship USS GRASP (ARS 51) off the crash site of TWA Flight 800 to assist federal and state authorities with deep-water survey, debris mapping and wreckage recovery. Over the following weeks, she supported remotely operated vehicle (ROV) sweeps, diving operations, and heavy lifts coordinated through the Navy Supervisor of Salvage (SUPSALV), integrating with Coast Guard, NTSB and local assets and using Navy systems such as DEEP DRONE III as conditions and tasking required.

In 1997, she again deployed to the Mediterranean. That summer, from July 17–24, during a Partnership for Peace bilateral diving exercise called Poseidon Divex at Constanta, Romania, GRAPPLE's divers trained Romanian Navy teams on MK-21 surface-supplied diving procedures, emergency protocols and diving medicine, and conducted joint harbor and wreck workups. The ship paired these engagements with standard towing and standby salvage duties for Sixth Fleet, interspersed with calls for fuel and stores at familiar anchors such as Souda Bay.

Another catastrophic civil air accident shifted her focus in September 1998. After SWISSAIR Flight 111 went down off Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, GRAPPLE arrived on September 12, 1998, to augment the multinational recovery led by the Canadian authorities. She brought additional lift capability, diving teams, and ROV support to deep-water search and recovery in rough North Atlantic conditions, remaining on scene for roughly three weeks while Canadian military and coast guard units, supported by U.S. and other partners, mapped and recovered wreckage and remains from the primary debris field.

Only a year later, on October 31, 1999, EGYPTAIR Flight 990 crashed south of Nantucket on Georges Bank. GRAPPLE got underway from Little Creek the same day to assist. She worked with the fleet ocean tug USNS MOHAWK (T-ATF 170) and NOAA survey vessel NOAAS WHITING during the initial phase and subsequent deep-water recovery, again integrating Navy search tools and ROVs to locate and recover the flight recorders and significant wreckage from the seabed before winter weather further complicated operations. This sequence - rapid sortie, integration with civilian investigative leads, and sustained deep-water salvage - had by then become a core competency for the SAFEGUARD-class.

In 2000, reflecting her consistent operational performance, GRAPPLE received the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award as the Atlantic Fleet's top-performing ship in her category. In 2001, she deployed once more to the Mediterranean as Sixth Fleet's salvage asset, alternating joint diving evolutions with allied navies and routine towing, with periodic logistics stops in forward ports to stage for short-notice tasks across the central and eastern Mediterranean as NATO navies shifted from post-Balkans stabilization to maritime security operations after September 11.

In early 2002, after returning stateside, GRAPPLE entered a major yard period at Colonna Shipyard in Norfolk starting March 11, receiving an extensive package of maintenance and alterations. Work included upgrades to oily-waste processing and the ship's AFFF firefighting system and a series of SHIPALTs to keep the platform current for another deployment cycle. Ship's force worked alongside yard workers throughout, ensuring dive systems, towing machinery and the recompression complex were fully certified before sea trials and return to service.

By 2005, the ship's schedule reflected a very different security environment: NATO experimentation with complex submarine rescue and multinational diving interoperability on one hand, and homeland disaster response on the other. In June-July, she supported Sixth Fleet's submarine escape-and-rescue focus during ADRIATIC ENGAGEMENT 2005 and the NATO-led SORBET ROYAL 2005 exercise (July 11-30), which exercised international procedures for distressed-submarine assistance, mother-ship operations and cross-national diver/hyperbaric integration. Weeks later, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, GRAPPLE shifted to domestic response. Getting underway in early September, she operated from Pascagoula and then off Mobile, Alabama, where her divers cleared channels of submerged hazards, including the removal of a sunken channel marker obstructing commercial traffic. She completed those tasks and returned to Little Creek in early October.

On July 13, 2006, after two decades under a commissioned U.S. Navy crew, GRAPPLE was decommissioned at Little Creek and transferred to Military Sealift Command, re-entering service the same day as USNS GRAPPLE (T-ARS 53) with a civilian mariner crew and Navy divers embarked as mission teams. Under MSC, she continued to answer geographically diverse calls. On January 25, 2010, when ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES Flight 409 crashed off Beirut shortly after takeoff, GRAPPLE was tasked while operating in the central Mediterranean. She sailed via Augusta Bay, Sicily, to embark Navy divers and Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians, and then proceeded to Lebanon to assist Lebanese authorities, UNIFIL and allied navies in underwater search and recovery of wreckage and flight recorders in winter sea states. In October 2012, she supported a research diving project off Calvi, Corsica, on a World War II B-17 sea-landing site, demonstrating the platform's utility for controlled archaeological and historical diving operations as well as emergency response.

In January 2013, after a U.S. Air Force F-16C from Aviano crashed into the Adriatic Sea, GRAPPLE assisted in search and recovery operations coordinated with U.S. and Italian authorities, a mission whose investigation later cited spatial disorientation as causal. The following year, in July 2014, she shifted far north to Botwood Harbour, Newfoundland, to support recovery operations at the crash site of a 1940s aircraft in cold, low-visibility conditions - another illustration of her niche role at the intersection of cold-water diving, heavy lift and precise station-keeping in constrained waters.

After a final decade of such mixed assignments, GRAPPLE was placed in "Out of Service, in Reserve" status on October 1, 2016, and berthed at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Philadelphia. Photographs in 2019 showed the ship laid up there among other inactives, concluding a career that spanned Cold War contingencies, high-end NATO rescue drills, and a series of technically demanding civil-aviation recoveries in both the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, alongside periodic disaster-relief and harbor-clearance tasks along the U.S. coast.

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About the Ship's Coat of Arms:

The Shield:

The Romeo flag is flown by the ship that is to be ready at a moment's notice to leave port and perform its mission. This flag on the old and new GRAPPLE's crest represents the constant vigilance demanded of both crews. The MK 12 diver, carrying an underwater hydraulic tool, and the modern stato anchor next to him, contrast the MK 5 and eells anchors on the original GRAPPLE's crest, and symbolize GRAPPLE's commitment to being the most technologically-advanced salvage ship afloat.

The Crest:

The blue and gold wreath shows the colors worn by all Navy divers while diving and physically training. The flame represents the fury and danger of war; the three stars stand for the three wars in which the original GRAPPLE served. The lion amid flames, represents the courage needed to save other ships in combat. The two white stars upon the collar stand for this ship, the second to be named GRAPPLE.

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USS / USNS GRAPPLE Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the GRAPPLE laid up at Philadelphia, Penn., on October 7, 2018.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows ex-GRAPPLE laid up at Philadelphia, Penn., on May 26, 2023.

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