 The Navy's first latoral combat ship completed a crew swap August 6th in Singapore. Freedom's blue crew arrived for the swap ready to continue the second half of the deployment and build on the relationships the ship's gold crew has established with regional navies. Both crews turned over several times in Freedom's home port of San Diego, but this was the first crew swap conducted on a deployed LCS. The purpose of the crew swap is to ensure that there's a time set aside in which the oncoming crew gets to meet and refamiliarize themselves with the ship and get the information from the previous crew so they can continue on the mission. The blue crew will continue to conduct port visits and participate in exercises and exchanges with regional navies in the 7th Fleet area of responsibility. Freedom is scheduled to return to San Diego in late 2013.