The $440-million-dollar USS Little Rock, the Navy's newest Freedom-variant littoral combat ship, has been iced-in since Christmas Eve on the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada -- and is not expected to get moving until spring.

The USS Little Rock was commissioned in Buffalo, N.Y., on Dec. 16., with plans to travel to its home port at Mayport Naval Station in Florida the next day. The departure, however, was delayed three days by inclement weather on Lake Erie, according to Business Insider.

The 389-foot-long vessel eventually left Buffalo on Dec. 20. and arrived in Montreal on Dec. 27, where it was supposed to stop briefly overnight before sailing onto Nova Scotia -- yet plans for Little Rock were undermined by unforgiving cold and ice.

The original voyage to Florida will be postponed for the time being as officials have decided to wait until the ice begins to thaw, as it will keep the crew and ship safe.

"The temperatures in Montreal and throughout the transit area have been colder than normal, and included near-record low temperatures, which created significant and historical conditions in the late December, early January time frame," Lt.-Cmdr. Courtney Hillson told USNI News.

The USS Little Rock is the tenth littoral combat ship to enter the fleet, and the fifth of the Freedom-variant.

The Freedom-class littoral combat ship, built by Lockheed Martin, has a top speed of over 40 miles per hour and carries a variety of light weapon systems, short-range missiles and anti-submarine torpedoes.

Littoral combat ships are designed to operate close to shore for patrol, interdiction, mine-countermeasures, undersea warfare operations and other missions -- operations that will have to wait for the time being for the crew of the Little Rock.

USS Fitzgerald arrives in Mississippi for repairs following 2017 collision
Washington (UPI) Jan 22, 2018 - Naval Sea Systems Command awarded a contract last week for the continued repair of the USS Fitzgerald amid a U.S. government shutdown and pending court-martial for the ship's former commanding officer .

The terms of the new contract between the Navy and Huntington Ingalls were announced Friday by the Department of Defense hours before the Senate failed to reach a deal on a bill to fund the government.

The contract is worth more than $125.1 million under a cost-plus-fixed-fee, which is a cost reimbursement agreement that alleviates some of the risk to the contractor by offsetting potential cost overruns. The new contract modifies a previous award to Huntington Ingalls.

The Arleigh Burke-class USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer assigned to the Navy's Seventh Fleet, arrived in Pascagoula, Miss., Jan. 19, aboard heavy lift vessel MV Transshelf from Yokosuka, Japan.

The ship will undergo a complex emergent repair and restoration process throughout 2018. The work is expected to be completed in Jan. 2020.

More than $62.5 million has been obligated to Huntington Ingalls from fiscal 2018 Navy operations and maintenance, and other procurement funds, which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.

Defense Department officials said last week that contracts that have already been awarded, with funds allocated, do not have to be terminated or have stop work orders issued as a result of the government shutdown. A lapse in funding on current contracts would only occur if new requirements on a contract are needed because new funding would have to be approved.

Officials said, however, that contracts may be terminated or stopped completely during the government shutdown if personnel that oversee work on a contract have been furloughed.

"The department may continue to enter into new contracts, or place task orders under existing contracts, to obtain supplies and services necessary to carry out or support excepted activities even though there are no available appropriations," Pentagon officials said in a contingency plan released early Friday in the event of a shutdown.

The modified contract also comes days after the Navy announced former Fitzgerald Cmdr. Bryce Benson will face court-martial charges that could include negligent homicide in the vessel's collision with a container ship in Tokyo Bay last August that left seven U.S. sailors dead.

In November, the Navy concluded that the Fitzgerald's collision with a commercial vessel was avoidable and the result of multiple human errors.

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Navy cruiser USS Cape St. George to get $35M in upgrades
Washington (UPI) Jan 19, 2018
BAE Systems San Diego Ship Repair has been awarded a $35 million order to update the capabilities of the Navy guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St. George. The deal, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, slates the Cape St. George for a special selected restricted availability under a multiple-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. The ship, which is ho ... read more

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