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SS Antares (T-AKR 294)

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Named after the star in the constellation Scorpio, the ANTARES was eighth and last ALGOL - class fast sealift ship and the third ship in the Navy to bear the name. Ships in that class are the world's fastest cargo ships. Originally built in West Germany in 1972 as SS SEA-LAND GALLOWAY for Sea-Land Services, Inc., Port Elizabeth, N.J., the ship was purchased by the Navy in 1982 and converted. The cargo hold was redesigned into a series of decks connected by ramps so that vehicles could now be driven in and out of storage areas for rapid loading and unloading. Four cranes were installed - twin cranes amidships capable of lifting 35 long tons and twin cranes aft capable of lifting 50 long tons. The ANTARES was delivered to the Military Sealift Command in 1984.

Since then, the ANTARES was involved in several operations including Operation Enduring Freedom (2001 - ), Joint Guardian (1998/99), and Restore Hope (1992). The ANTARES originally also was scheduled to participate in Operation Desert Shield/Deser Storm (1990/91). But the ANTARES failed off the East coast of the United States with a considerable amount of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) equipment aboard. The ship was towed to Spain. Some of the cargo was airlifted to Saudi Arabia but most had to be unloaded and reloaded aboard another FSS returning from her initial voyage. This cargo arrived about three weeks later than planned. Before the war, the ANTARES had been scheduled for major overhaul, but this was delayed. Thus a degree of risk was accepted in the decision to use ANTARES to speed the deployment.

On October 1, 2007, the ANTARES was transferred to the MARAD. On October 1, 2008, the ship was transferred to the Ready Reserve Force and lost her USNS designation. ANTARES is presently laid up at Beaumont, Tx., waiting to be sold for scrapping.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard SS ANTARES. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

• Click here to view the list.

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SS ANTARES History:

SEA-LAND GALLOWAY was built as an SL-7 class high-speed containership at A.G. Weser in Bremen, West Germany. The hull was launched on May 1, 1972, and the ship was completed and delivered in 1972 for commercial use under Sea-Land's intermodal system. Designed around Sea-Land's then-standard 35-foot containers, the SL-7s emphasized speed and schedule reliability. SEA-LAND GALLOWAY was based out of Sea-Land's terminal at Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, and was capable of very high sustained speeds, but that performance came with high fuel consumption and expensive steam-plant upkeep. As operating economics shifted - particularly as energy costs rose and the global container standard moved toward 40-foot boxes that the SL-7s were not built around - SEA-LAND GALLOWAY and her sisters struggled to sustain consistently profitable commercial employment despite efforts to focus on specialized, climate-controlled cargoes in proprietary containers.

The ship's combination of speed and size nevertheless aligned with U.S. strategic sealift thinking as Cold War reinforcement plans emphasized rapid movement of heavy equipment to Europe. In August 1981, Sea-Land publicly discussed selling SL-7 ships to the U.S. Navy, and that same period saw the Naval Sea Systems Command award a $207.5 million purchase contract for six SL-7s (with options for additional ships) along with associated containers and support equipment. Against that backdrop, Military Sealift Command (MSC) formally moved to bring SEA-LAND GALLOWAY into government service: Acquired in mid-1982, the ship's name change was recorded on September 29, 1982, when SEA-LAND GALLOWAY became ANTARES, named for the bright star in Scorpius. Even before the renaming paperwork was complete, the Navy was already pushing the SL-7 conversions forward: on September 13, 1982, ANTARES was sent to Avondale Shipyard near New Orleans to be transformed from a pure container ship into a fast sealift RO/RO vehicle cargo ship, with strengthened internal decks and ramps for roll-on/roll-off operations and the installation of shipboard cranes intended to support loading and discharge even where shore infrastructure was limited. After the conversion program, the ship entered MSC service as USNS ANTARES (T-AKR 294) on July 12, 1984.

In the years that followed, USNS ANTARES operated as part of the Ready Reserve Force concept - kept available for rapid activation - so its peacetime rhythm combined maintenance and readiness activity with periodic loadouts and deployments when major lift was required. In 1985, the ship supported the REFORGER series of Cold War reinforcement exercises, loading U.S. Army equipment at Savannah, Georgia, and transporting it for onward movement through Western European ports including Amsterdam, reflecting the era's emphasis on proving that heavy forces could move quickly from U.S. bases to NATO theaters.

That strategic logic was tested in real time after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. USNS ANTARES was activated for DESERT SHIELD on August 8, 1990, and on August 20, 1990, she departed Jacksonville, Florida, carrying a large portion of the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized)'s equipment. About five days into the transit, a major propulsion casualty forced the ship to stop. The fleet ocean tug USNS APACHE (T-ATF 172) took ANTARES in tow, first toward Rota, Spain, and then onward toward Gibraltar. To keep the movement from failing outright, MSC diverted USNS ALTAIR (T-AKR 291) to take the stranded cargo by transloading at sea, allowing the equipment to reach Saudi Arabia, though later than planned. The episode highlighted both the enormous throughput potential of the fast sealift ships and the operational risk that came with maintaining very high-power plants and complex propulsion systems in a fleet that spent much of its time in reduced operating status.

After the Gulf War period, USNS ANTARES continued to be tapped when the United States needed rapid heavy-lift logistics in crisis-response operations. In December 1992, she supported Operation RESTORE HOPE, the U.S.-led humanitarian and security intervention in Somalia, carrying cargo intended to help establish and sustain the initial flow of relief and stabilization forces. On September 12, 1994, the ship loaded equipment and deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in support of Operation SAFE HAVEN, part of the broader U.S. response to mass migration from the Caribbean. Between September 1994 and March 1995, USNS ANTARES transported more than 8,000 Cuban refugees from Guantanamo to camps in Panama, a mission that placed a fast sealift RO/RO ship into a large-scale humanitarian movement role rather than its original heavy-division sealift concept.

In January 1996, USNS ANTARES and sister ship USNS CAPELLA (T-AKR 293) shifted their berths from Jacksonville, Florida, to Baltimore, Maryland, reflecting changing maintenance and readiness support arrangements within the sealift force. The ship remained visible enough locally that MSC opened her for public tours on the last weekend of March 1996. In May 1996, she operated out of Norfolk Naval Base for Exercise DRAGON TEAM, an intermodal deployment exercise moving Army equipment from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to the Hampton Roads region, reinforcing the point that strategic deployment depended on ports, railheads, highways, and ship interfaces working as a single system. In September 1997, USNS ANTARES was one of three MSC transports - along with USNS GILLILAND (T-AKR 298) and USNS ALTAIR - used in the movement of more than 2,500 pieces of Army equipment through the Port of Savannah in preparation for the BRIGHT STAR deployment readiness cycle associated with U.S.-Egyptian and multinational training, again emphasizing how sealift connected U.S. ground forces to overseas training and contingency locations.

A more politically symbolic mission followed in 1999 as NATO operations in the Balkans reshaped the security environment in Southeastern Europe. On February 25, 1999, MSC announced that USNS ANTARES was bound for Croatia to deliver U.S. Army equipment in support of Operation JOINT GUARD, the NATO-led peace implementation effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In that deployment, the ship loaded at Beaumont, Texas, and at Wilmington, North Carolina, then completed an eighteen-day voyage to Rijeka, Croatia. The call was notable locally because it appears to have been among the earliest U.S. Navy-associated port visits there in the post-Cold War period. After discharge, USNS ANTARES returned to the United States and, by April 17, 1999, was reported arriving in Texas - at Corpus Christi - to offload returning equipment and vehicles.

After the September 11 attacks shifted U.S. military priorities toward sustained operations in Southwest and Central Asia, USNS ANTARES again moved heavy cargo. In January 2003, she loaded approximately 2,000 pieces of equipment in San Diego, California, to support I Marine Expeditionary Force for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Following that movement and the associated operational demand cycle, the ship was taken out of active service on May 3, 2003, and placed back into reduced operating status in Baltimore. The next year brought another surge: USNS ANTARES was reactivated on January 30, 2004, to carry cargo to Iraq in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. After a short return to reduced operating status, she was reactivated again on May 29, 2004, loaded about 138,000 square feet of equipment for the 10th Mountain Division, delivered that cargo to Iraq, and then returned to the United States. On August 18, 2004, she was placed back into reduced operating status in Norfolk.

As the U.S. sealift enterprise evolved, custody and management responsibilities shifted. On October 1, 2007, MSC transferred custody of USNS ANTARES and administration of her operating contract to the Maritime Administration (MARAD), and MARAD received full title on October 1, 2008, placing the ship more squarely under MARAD's Ready Reserve Force management practices even as her mission remained national defense sealift. During her MARAD period, the ship participated in multiple "no-notice" turbo activations intended to prove readiness on short timelines, but the available MARAD narrative notes that the ship's age and condition increasingly affected performance, with a significant portion of activations not meeting requirements.

In 2007, in a distinct noncombat incident, MARAD records also credit USNS ANTARES with receiving MSC's Admiral of the Ocean Sea Mariners' Plaque for the rescue of a Mexican fisherman, though the surviving publicly available summary does not preserve a fuller operational narrative for that event. The ship underwent an overhaul in 2013, and she continued to be maintained in the Ready Reserve Force until 2020, when she was downgraded into the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) in the Baltimore area, where she increasingly served as a source of parts and equipment for other ships.

In March 2024, USNS ANTARES became an incidental participant in a major domestic infrastructure disaster when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore, disrupting port access and leaving several reserve ships - including ANTARES - temporarily trapped behind the closure of key channels. As port operations stabilized and fleet management priorities shifted, MARAD moved the ship out of Baltimore. On August 20, 2024, USNS ANTARES arrived at the Beaumont Reserve Fleet in Texas and was assigned there, reflecting both space constraints and an emerging disposition trajectory for older fast sealift ships. By September 5, 2025, MARAD records show that ANTARES had been ordered downgraded to non-retention status, with the ship proceeding through disposal planning and recycling solicitation steps. By November 30, 2025, the NDRF inventory listed USNS ANTARES in a non-retention disposal status at Beaumont, marking the administrative end of her readiness role and the transition toward final disposition after more than four decades of combined commercial and government service.

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SS ANTARES Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the ANTARES at her layberth in Baltimore, Md., on October 31, 2010. The ship alongside is DENEBOLA (T-AKR 289).

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the ANTARES at her layberth at Baltimore, Md., on October 15, 2016.

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