USNS Capella calls at Cape Town

Mar 9, 2005
Author: P&S

The list of pre-positioning ships visiting Cape Town continues to grow and the latest to arrive for bunkering on 8 March was USNS Capella (T-AKR 293), a sister vessel to USNS Altair that was in Durban recently.

USNS Capella is a steam-driven fast vehicle cargo ship capable of 33 knots, a speed that can be sustained over long distances. There are eight ships in the class – conversions from former Dutch and German-built container vessels that proved too costly to maintain in commercial service. Each ship was extensively rebuilt in the United States for military sealift use.

Ian Shiffman took this picture of USNS Capella.