"Big Red" gets back to business
"Big Red" as she is known because of here massive size (over 730 ft. in length) and brightly painted red hull, arrived at the southern British port of Southampton in early June. "The ship comes through about every two years in order to discharge cargo for scheduled maintenance," said MSC Europe's liaison officer to commander-in-chief, U.S. Naval Forces - Europe, Paul Kelleher.
The 70,000-plus ton American Cormorant carries U.S. Army watercraft, including LCU-2000 and LCU-8 landing craft, a fuel barge, a crane barge, and large port tugs-equipment used by the U.S. Army to open a port where normal facilities may have been damaged or destroyed. The ship is stationed in Diego Garcia as part of Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron Two.
The heavy lift ship submerges below the waterline so that the smaller watercraft simply 'float on' or 'float-off,' or 'flo-flo.' Once free from the mother ship, watercraft sail the short distance to the U.S. Army's Combat Equipment Battalion located at Hythe, U.K., for upkeep.
"No sooner had [they] caught their breath, when it was decided to take advantage of the ship's unique 'flo/flo' capability, to have the ship return to Norfolk, Va., to pick up some additional U.S. Army watercraft and one U.S. Navy tug, all destined for Europe," Kelleher said.
In Nofolk, American Cormorant loaded two LCU-2000s, three LCM-8's, one large tug, two standard tugs, and a U.S. Navy tugboat, and returned to Hythe to off-load the cargo.
The Navy tug, however, was destined for LaMaddalena, Sardinia, Italy. In order to save additional sailing time to the Mediterranean, a smaller 'flo-flo' ship-the Gibraltar-flagged MV Condock III-was chartered by Military Sealift Command for the mission.
Sailing from Germany, Condock III rendezvoused with American Cormorant off the coast of Southampton on Oct. 14. Due to heavy seas at the time, American Cormorant shifted to a more sheltered position between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland, to transfer the Navy tug. Once the tug was secured aboard, Condock set sail the following day for Sardinia.
American Cormorant then had just under two weeks to catch up on scheduled maintenance and repairs. On Oct. 29, American Cormorant shifted back to deep water anchorage from her lay berth, and commenced to ballast down to reload her cargo the next morning. It took just five hours to backload all the watercraft, consisting of three LCU-2000s, seven LCM-8s, two large tugs, one warping tug, two standard tugs, and one fuel barge.
After taking fuel, American Cormorant began the long journey, around the Cape of Good Hope, to the central Indian Ocean where she returns for prepositioning duty.
(FROM MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND - EUROPE PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
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