Captain Owen Honors has been relieved of his command of the USS Enterprise and another officer has been chosen to take over, Admiral John Harvey said in a statement to reporters in Norfolk, Virginia, the home port of the nuclear-powered ship.

"His profound lack of good judgment and professionalism while previously serving as executive officer of the Enterprise calls into question his character and undermines his credibility," said Harvey, according to live video footage fed to CNN television.

Honors' videos, made in 2006 and 2007 and shown to the carrier's 6,000 sailors, are laced with slurs against gays, scenes with simulated masturbation and sailors shown showering together.

The videos were produced when Honors was the ship's number two officer and were meant to offer comic relief to the crew.

After reviewing the videos, Harvey said: "I have lost confidence in his ability to lead effectively, to command Enterprise."

"He is being held accountable for the poor judgment and inappropriate actions repeatedly demonstrated in those videos," he said.

The decision was "permanent," the admiral said, despite previous media speculation that the captain would be temporarily relieved of command.

Honors was promoted from executive officer to the commander of the Enterprise last year, a powerful, coveted post in the US Navy.

Throughout one video, Honors, a former fighter pilot, ridicules surface warfare officers as "fags."

Honors is filmed repeatedly using the "f" word, followed by another where he and others simulate masturbation to the song "Spank," and one in which two female sailors are depicted in a shower together.

Harvey said a Navy investigation into the "inappropriate" videos would proceed.

In-house videos are often made to boost morale for naval crews at sea for long periods, but Honors' productions prompted some complaints from sailors and drew criticism this week from gay right activists.

"Captain Owen Honors was acting more like the president of a frat house rather than the executive officer of the USS Enterprise," Aubrey Sarvis, executive director for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said in a statement.

Honors, however, got some public backing on Facebook. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 10,000 people had clicked "like" on a Facebook page supporting him, including former crew members.

The episode came at an awkward time for the Navy and the military, only weeks after Congress scrapped a ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces.

Senior officers in recent years have worked to portray the military as tolerant towards women and cracked down on cases of sexual harassment and assault against female service members.

In 1991, the US Navy endured disastrous fallout from the "Tailhook" scandal, when male Navy pilots sexually assaulted female Navy officers at a convention in Las Vegas.

The sacking of commanding officers in the US Navy is not unusual, with 17 skippers relieved of duty last year. Out of those 17 officers, 11 lost their posts due to "personal misconduct," including drunken displays and sexual harassment, according to the Navy Times.

The USS Enterprise is due to be deployed soon to the Arabian Sea in support of the war in Afghanistan.

Captain Dee Mewbourne, the former commander of another aircraft carrier, the USS Dwight Eisenhower, was named to take over the Enterprise.

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