USNS ''Balboa'' (T-EMS-2) will be the eighteenth overall , and second . She will be operated by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

Military Sealift Command The Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all U ...

. On 27 October 2023, Secretary of the Navy

Carlos Del Toro Carlos Del Toro (born 1961) is a Cuban-American entrepreneur and retired United States Navy officer who served as the 78th United States secretary of the Navy from 2021 to 2025. He is the second Hispanic American to serve as the Secretary of the ...

announced that the ship would be named after

Naval Medical Center San Diego Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) is a United States Navy hospital in San Diego, California. It is also known as Bob Wilson Naval Hospital and informally referred to as "Balboa Hospital", and "The Pink Palace", due to the stucco of the first ...

(NMCSD), which is informally known as "Balboa Naval Hospital", to "honor the legacy and commitment of Navy doctors, nurses, corpsmen, and staff of Balboa Naval Hospital in caring for the needs of U.S. Service Members". The name dates back more than a hundred years, when a naval medical tent was first erected in the middle of San Diego's Balboa Park (on the site of the present day NMCSD), for the

Panama–California Exposition The Panama–California Exposition was a World's fair, world exposition held in San Diego, California, between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917. The exposition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, and was meant to tout San Diego as t ...

in 1915. Also announced was

ship sponsor A ship sponsor, by tradition, is a female civilian who is invited to "sponsor" a vessel, presumably to bestow good luck and divine protection over the seagoing vessel and all that sail aboard.Eyers, Jonathan (2011). ''Don't Shoot the Albatross!: ...

Deborah Paxton, RN,

MSN MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps provided by Microsoft. The main webpage provides news, weather, sports, finance and other content curated from hundreds of different sources that Microsoft has partnere ...

, wife of

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

John Paxton, the 33rd

Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps The assistant commandant of the Marine Corps (ACMC) is the second highest-ranking officer in the United States Marine Corps, and serves as a deputy for the commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC). Before 1946, the title was known as the assistant to ...

Expeditionary Medical Ship

Beginning with EPF-14, the ships will be designated as EPF Flight II, with increased health services capabilities while still maintaining most of the original mission of the ship. The Flight II variant is designed to bring enhanced medical capabilities at the request of Combatant Commanders, and allows patients to recover onboard rather than in a higher-level facility. They can respond faster, and to more places than the Navy's larger, slower and unarmed

hospital ship A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating healthcare, medical treatment facility or hospital. Most are operated by the military forces (mostly navy, navies) of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or ...

s. The EPF Flight II design includes upgrades to the medical facilities for resuscitation and surgery, enhanced support of V-22 flight operations, and enhanced launch and recovery of 11-meter rigid inflatable boats. In January 2023, the Navy announced that three Expeditionary Medical Ships (EMS) had been approved in the 2023 military budget. These will be

T-EMS-1 USNS ''Bethesda'' (T-EMS-1) will be the seventeenth overall , and first of her Expeditionary Medical Ship class, operated by the United States Navys Military Sealift Command. On 15 May 2023, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced that t ...

T-EMS-2 USNS ''Balboa'' (T-EMS-2) will be the eighteenth overall , and second . She will be operated by the United States Navys Military Sealift Command. On 27 October 2023, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced that the ship would be named ...

, and T-EMS-3. These are planned to be about 118m versus the earlier ships , and have a

draft Draft, the draft, or draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a v ...

of for operations in "austere ports". The EMS will have four operating rooms and 124 medical beds, separated into acute care, acute isolation, ICU, and ICU isolation spaces. Two 11-meter

rigid-hulled inflatable boat A rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull (watercraft), hull bottom joined to side-forming a ...

s allow for the transfer of patients from other ships or water rescue; the flight deck has room for a single

V-22 The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-use, tiltrotor military transport and cargo aircraft with both vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capabilities. It is designed to combine the functionalit ...

, or an

H-53 The Sikorsky H-53 is a family of military helicopters built by Sikorsky Aircraft. H-53 is its United States military designation; the company has several designations for it including S-65, S-80, and S-95. The helicopter is noted for Naval, Sea ...

H-60 The Sikorsky H-60 is a family of military helicopters built by Sikorsky Aircraft. All models use a modified mission symbol in addition to the 'H' vehicle type designator under the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system (meani ...

helicopter.

References

Transports of the United States Navy Spearhead-class Joint High Speed Vessels {{US-mil-ship-stub