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INGLESIDE — Naval Station Ingleside came one step closer to shutting its gates Tuesday, decommissioning the base’s Mine Warfare Training Center. The center served to train more than 42,000 sailors for shipboard mine counter measures. The facility was decommissioned as a result of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round, which ordered the consolidation of the center with Fleet Anti-submarine Warfare Training Center San Diego, Calif.

INGLESIDE — A new way to move shipping containers might be tested in Ingleside as early as next year. Stephen Roop, designer and assistant director of the Texas Transportation Institute, a research and development agency working with the Texas A&M University System, has developed a freight shuttle that would move a container from point A to point B on rails. The process would be automated and computerized, with the owner of the shuttle programming where the shuttle needs to take the container. The concept is to alleviate congestion on highways and ship cargo more efficiently, Roop said. It was developed...

INGLESIDE, Texas — For years, Naval Station Ingleside had been a key part of this quiet bayside community 12 miles north of Corpus Christi. Rumors had been flying that the base was doomed under the Base Realignment and Closure Commission's current round, so civilian and military officials said they were not surprised Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put Ingleside on the list. "It was not unexpected," City Manager Mike Rhea said. "We're just going to have to go from here." In the past 17 years, new restaurants and chain motels sprouted to accommodate the base's visitors and temporary workers. Personnel...

A high-speed vessel left Naval Station Ingleside this week on its way to help tsunami disaster relief efforts, base officials said. Fifi Kieschnick, a public affairs officer for Naval Station Ingleside, said High Speed Vessel 2 Swift was deployed Monday to the vicinity of Singapore. Kieschnick said she did not know how many people were on the ship or how long they would be assisting relief efforts.

  Navy Shows Off Next-Generation Vessel By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USAAmerican Forces Press Service Alexandria, Va., April 2, 2004 -- The huge vessel looks quite out of place among the small yachts and sailboats at a shallow pier. Neighborhood people on their morning jogs and dog walks looked amazingly at the HSV 2 Swift on its four-day port call here March 30. The HSV 2 Swift may one day become the Defense Department's transformation into the future. The Swift floats on two sleek, wave-piercing catamarans and can travel at speed of 42 knots or 85 plus kilometers...

HSV-X2 Swift flies at nearly 51 mph. Call her Swift. If only poor Ahab had commanded the HSV-X2 Swift instead of the Pequod, he might have turned Moby Dick into mincemeat. That much was obvious Friday afternoon when the Navy showed off the capabilities of the high-speed vessel that's serving as the command ship for the mine warfare fleet at Naval Station Ingleside. With the ability to travel at speeds up to nearly 50 knots, the Swift could have easily caught and overrun the fictional white whale. She could have even sped past him as she did to numerous skiffs,...

Naval Station Ingleside ship will be used for target practice David Fix knows the USS Inchon has served its time. He knows the Navy can't hold onto it forever. But that doesn't keep him from crying when he thinks about it going down - crying so much that he can't even utter the words to memorialize it. Like most sailors, Fix of Lancaster, Pa., who served aboard the Inchon from 1981 to 1983, remembers the ship and his time aboard it with fondness. The USS Inchon, formerly a centerpiece of the Mine Warfare Command fleet in the U.S. Navy, is...

The future of the Navy is on its way to Naval Station Ingleside, according to U.S. Fleet Forces Command. The HSV-X2 Swift, a record-setting high-speed vessel leased by the Navy from Australian shipbuilder Bollinger/Incat USA, will make Ingleside its home port while it acts as an interim replacement for the command and control ship for the Navy's Mine Warfare fleet. However, the Swift will see little time at Ingleside, officials say, due to its experimental role in Navy operations that may offer a window to how the Navy will utilize ships in the future. Capt. Terry Miller, assistant chief of...