On March 23, the FY2018 U.S. federal budget was passed and included $300 million for planning, designing and building the National Security Multi-mission vessel (NSMV), designed by Herbert Engineering Corp. for MARAD to replace the existing and ageing cadet training ships of the State Maritime Academies.

Articles in GCaptain and Maritime Executive were published on the day.

Marine Link previously had a detailed feature about the design of the vessel - Designing the New National Security Multi-Mission Vessel that was published in August 2017, and followed that up with an article in January 2018 - Domestic Maritime Training: In Extremis.

A short presentation about the design was given to the NorCal section of SNAME in February (with webinar) and video visualisations of the design were produced for MARAD. Full length video below and summary version here.