Navy ship sets record for consecutive days at sea, breaks COVID-caused record from earlier this year
These sailors could use a change of sea-nery.
A U.S. Navy ship has spent a Naval-record 208 consecutive days at sea, besting a coronavirus-caused mark set earlier this year.
The USS Stout, a guided-missile destroyer, officially set the record Saturday, the Navy announced in a press release. The Stout has been deployed around the Middle East and North Africa.
“We are extremely proud of Stout’s accomplishments in theater as they’ve been operating to ensure freedom of navigation,” Vice Adm. Samuel Paparo said in the release. “Stout embodied their motto and prevailed with ‘Courage, Valor and Integrity.’”
USS Stout is part of a group of ships that spent summer in the region without making port because of the coronavirus pandemic. But while its strike group pals, including the previous record-holders USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS San Jacinto, returned to Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 9, the Stout had to remain behind.
The destroyer last made port March 2 in Spain, described in a Facebook post as a “brief respite” that preceded a voyage that was everything but brief.
According to the Navy, “not once during deployment did the crew fail to execute its assigned tasking to support continuous operations.”
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