It was an end of an era Saturday when the final Littoral Combat Ship built at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard was christened and launched. The future USS Cleveland, LCS 31, a freedom-variant littoral combat ship, is the 16^th and final Freedom-variant LCS. Robyn Modly, wife of former Acting Secretary of the Navy and Cleveland native, Thomas Modly Christened the ship.

Fincantieri CEO, Mark Vandroff says, “you saw these side-launches are visually spectacular and they’re a lot of fun to do. It’s the way people have put ships into the water for literally thousands of years with basically the same technology.”

Vandroff says, “the first frigate is expected to be christened and launched in 2025, and finished in 2026.

According to Program Director Chris Martin with Lockeed Martin, he states as the ship is launched, production completion is around 85 percent. So, we’ve got more work to do and we have to go to test and trials. Fincantieri Marinette Marine currently employs roughly 1,400 people if you count both blue collar and white collar, but they need an additional 200 more for the frigate.