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MV Cape Race (T-AKR 9960)

Sorry, no coat of arms available.

Built in 1977, the ship was delivered to Transocean Ro-Ro Corp. as MV SEASPEED AMERICA. Later renamed G&G ADMIRAL and STENA AMERICA she was purchased by the Maritime Administration in 1993 and was subsequently converted for military use. Renamed MV CAPE RACE (T-AKR 9960), she was assigned to the Ready Reserve Force on September 11, 1994. Since then, she is maintained in reduced operating status in a layberth at Portsmouth, Va. If required, she can be fully activated within 5 days.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard MV CAPE RACE. 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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MV CAPE RACE History:

MV CAPE RACE is a roll-on/roll-off cargo vessel that entered United States government service after a prior commercial career. The ship was built in 1977 in Japan and began life in commercial operation under the name SEASPEED AMERICA. Over the following years, the vessel changed commercial operators and names, including periods as G&C ADMIRAL and STENA AMERICA, before being acquired for government-controlled surge sealift use. On April 28, 1993, the vessel entered the Maritime Administration's reserve fleet structure, marking its transition from purely commercial service into the pool of ships maintained to support United States strategic sealift requirements. On February 1, 1994, the ship took the name CAPE RACE, and on September 11, 1994, it was assigned to the Ready Reserve Force - an element intended to provide rapidly activatable shipping capacity for contingencies and major deployments. From that point, CAPE RACE's "normal" posture was not continuous trading service but lay-berth readiness: maintained with a defined activation timeline, crews and contractors available for call-up, and periodic maintenance and readiness actions to keep the ship able to sail when ordered. CAPE RACE's lay-berth is associated with Portsmouth, Virginia, in publicly available fleet inventories for the modern era, reflecting where the ship has been staged and maintained within the reserve-force basing network.

CAPE RACE's early government-era operational relevance came in the mid-1990s, when the United States and its allies were building the practical logistics capacity to sustain deployments tied to Balkan stabilization. In 1995, amid the final phases of the Bosnian War and the international push to reinforce and support peace implementation and protection missions in the region, CAPE RACE was among the fast-activation roll-on/roll-off ships brought out to move unit equipment and sustainment cargo. In that period, CAPE RACE conducted a surge sealift mission linked to the movement of allied military cargo from Northern Europe and the United Kingdom toward the Adriatic, supporting the logistics flow into Croatia used as a gateway for forces and equipment moving toward Bosnia and surrounding areas. Public accounts of the mission describe CAPE RACE loading in ports including Emden in Germany and Marchwood in England, followed by discharge in Croatian ports including Split and Ploce - movements that matched the roll-on/roll-off model: wheeled and tracked vehicles, trailers, and unit cargoes driven aboard and driven ashore, minimizing time alongside and maximizing throughput. These kinds of voyages were not isolated stunts but part of the broader proof-of-concept of post-Cold War surge sealift: showing that ships held in reserve status could be activated, crewed, and sent into an active logistics pipeline on short notice in support of coalition operations.

Through the late 1990s and 2000s, CAPE RACE remained within the Ready Reserve Force architecture rather than being continuously forward-deployed, with the ship's operational significance tied to the ability to mobilize quickly when directed. That role became more visible again in the 2010s as the United States increasingly used reserve sealift not only for large sustained wars but also for episodic high-priority moves and contingency support. On February 17, 2014, CAPE RACE deployed on a mission that included the movement of aviation cargo out of Djibouti - specifically including two CV-22 aircraft - along with other cargo routed onward to Agadir, Morocco. That snapshot illustrates an important practical feature of modern sealift tasking: even a reserve roll-on/roll-off ship can be tasked for specialized cargo movements (aircraft and associated support loads) when the requirement aligns with deck strength, internal clearances, and port/handling realities.

Later in 2014 and into 2015, CAPE RACE was associated with the logistics effort tied to Operation United Assistance, the United States military's support mission during the West Africa Ebola outbreak. In that context, the sealift requirement was less about combat power than about time-sensitive delivery of equipment, vehicles, and sustainment loads to support treatment capacity, command-and-control infrastructure, engineering tasks, and general mission sustainment in the affected region. For surge sealift ships, this type of mission underscores why the reserve fleet exists beyond major war plans: it provides a pool of large-capacity shipping that can be activated when commercial capacity, timing, or routing constraints make a government-controlled option preferable.

By the mid-to-late 2010s, CAPE RACE was also drawn into the Department of Defense's growing emphasis on testing sealift responsiveness under realistic pressure. In December 2016, CAPE RACE underwent a "turbo" style activation-related support event that included intensive, time-bounded underwater work intended to accelerate readiness - an example of the practical, hands-on measures often required to move a laid-up ship toward sailing condition on short notice.

The most data-rich public snapshot of CAPE RACE's readiness performance came during Turbo Activation 19-Plus, a large-scale, no-notice sealift readiness exercise run in September 2019. In that exercise environment, CAPE RACE was one of the Ready Reserve Force roll-on/roll-off ships ordered through an accelerated activation timeline designed to stress manpower pipelines, contractor responsiveness, ship material condition, and the coordination chain between reserve fleet managers and operational commanders. In the exercise reporting, CAPE RACE is recorded with a measured "time to declare ready for sea" of 115.7 hours - just under five days - consistent with the concept of a five-day readiness posture. However, CAPE RACE did not achieve a successful outcome on the associated sea-trial success metric in the exercise reporting, reflecting that meeting an activation clock and actually getting a ship underway with all required systems operating are not identical challenges. The same exercise documentation set also treated outcomes as pass/fail-oriented for readiness purposes, and CAPE RACE's recorded result fell on the non-pass side - useful precisely because it highlighted where time, parts, staffing, or equipment condition can block a theoretical readiness posture from becoming an actual sailing ship.

Readiness testing did not end with 2019. CAPE RACE was among the ships associated with later activation exercises, including Turbo Activation events in 2021 that again emphasized rapid mobilization and sustained "hold" periods to simulate real-world surge dynamics rather than short demonstrations. These iterations occurred amid intensifying public and congressional discussion of sealift capacity, the aging of portions of the surge fleet, and the challenge of ensuring enough qualified mariners and responsive maintenance capacity to make surge plans executable under pressure.

In 2022, CAPE RACE's operational relevance became visible in a different way: allied training and reinforcement. During Exercise Cold Response 2022 in Norway, CAPE RACE served as a Military Sealift Command cargo platform supporting the movement and offload of equipment and supplies for United States Marine Corps forces operating in the high north. The exercise, centered on Norwegian national defense readiness with allied participation, required moving significant volumes of gear into austere or cold-weather operating conditions. Public imagery and reporting associated with the exercise show cargo operations tied to CAPE RACE in Harstad, Norway, including ship-to-shore movement methods that integrated aviation lift, reflecting the kind of distributed offload solutions used when port infrastructure, timing, or exercise design calls for flexibility.

As of 2025 publicly available reserve fleet inventory snapshots, CAPE RACE remains listed as part of the Ready Reserve Force, with its lay-berth associated with Portsmouth, Virginia - indicating that the ship continues to be maintained in reserve status as surge sealift capacity rather than having been removed from the force, sold, or transferred into disposal categories. In practical terms, that means CAPE RACE's biography is defined not by constant visible deployments but by the institutional function it serves: a large roll-on/roll-off hull held in controlled readiness, occasionally activated for real-world moves or major exercises, and repeatedly used as a test case for whether the United States' surge sealift system can still translate plans and timelines into ships that sail.

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MV CAPE RACE Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the CAPE RACE at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on May 6, 2012.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the CAPE RACE at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on October 4, 2024.

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