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Military Sealift Command (MSC) chartered ship MV Cape Horn (T-AKR 5068) continued its voyage through the Pacific and arrived at the New Container Terminal in Subic Bay, Philippines, to offload equipment in support of exercise Balikatan 2024, April 15-16, 2024.
The vessel embarked on its voyage from its home base in San Francisco and made stops to load or unload cargo in Tacoma, Wash.; Honolulu; Anchorage, Alaska; Japan; Thailand; and Indonesia, before reaching the Philippines.
Cape Horn transported equipment to support several theater security cooperation exercises with ally and partner militaries in the Indo-Pacific region. Within two days, the ship unloaded approximately 554 pieces of equipment and containers.
Oversight of the offload of equipment in the Philippines was conducted by a detachment of the U.S. Army’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command.
The equipment coming off Cape Horn will support two exercises in the Philippines: the joint and combined BK24, as well as a separate Army bilateral exercise with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
“This is one of the last major discharges in support of BK24. MV Cape Horn was here before and did a partial discharge, today it’s doing a complete discharge,” said Army Lt. Col. Thomas Campeau, commander, 836th Transportation Battalion, 599th Transportation Brigade, SDDC, out of Yokohama, Japan. “It’s discharging 554 pieces of equipment in support of (two) exercises. We’re discharging rolling stock, containers and trailers; all the major components for the exercises are going to come off today and distributed to its owning units to be transported to the various exercise sites.”
The Balikatan discharge is part of a large-scale logistics operation that demonstrates U.S. and Philippine cooperation to enhance interoperability between forces in an increasingly complex Indo-Pacific security environment.
The commercial ship is part of the Ready Reserve Force fleet of vessels. The RRF is a subset of vessels within the Maritime Administration's National Defense Reserve Fleet ready to support the rapid worldwide deployment of U.S. military forces.
Cape Horn is a 750-foot-long roll-on, roll-off cargo vessel with four decks of cargo space. It can accommodate 186,000 sq. ft. of cargo, which equates to about 4.3 acres of space that can equal roughly 38,000 tons of gear.
Despite its massive presence, the ship’s characteristically low draft allows for this impressive tonnage while still getting into smaller ports. This ship has a significant cargo capacity and is multimodal, making Cape Horn ideal for the charter.
According to the MARAD website, RFF provides nearly 50 percent of government-owned surge sealift capability.
To support Balikatan port operations, MSC Far East sent a team of Reservists from Expeditionary Port Unit Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to assist in the discharge and provide an opportunity for MSC to learn more about port operations in the various countries.
These members act as liaisons between the ship, the military service members, and the host nation partners.
“The biggest challenge is all the coordination with the various host nation partners, the various exercise participants, and the different logistics teams,” said Chief Hospital Corpsman Salvador A. Vergara III, EPU Pearl Harbor, MSC Far East. “MSC has learned that having a single MSC representative supporting all the various locations greatly enhances efficiency, especially when working with a commercial vessel that’s not too accustomed to working with the U.S. military.”
Balikatan is a longstanding annual exercise between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the U.S. military designed to strengthen bilateral capabilities, interoperability, trust, and cooperation.
MSC Far East supports the U.S. 7th Fleet and ensures approximately 50 ships in the Indo-Pacific Region are manned, trained, and equipped to deliver essential supplies, fuel, cargo, and equipment to warfighters, both at sea and on shore. U.S. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy's largest forward-deployed numbered fleet and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024, MSC exists to support the joint warfighter across the full spectrum of military operations, with a workforce that includes approximately 6,000 Civil Service Mariners and 1,100 contract mariners, supported by 1,500 shore staff and 1,400 active duty and Reserve military personnel.
| Date Taken: | 04.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.21.2024 20:33 |
| Story ID: | 469036 |
| Location: | SUBIC BAY, PH |
| Web Views: | 282 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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