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MV Cape Ray (T-AKR 9679)

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Built in 1977, the ship was delivered to Saudi Arabia's National Ship Co. as MV SEASPEED ASIA. Later renamed SAUDI MAKKAH, she was purchased by the Maritime Administration in 1993 and was subsequently converted for military use. Renamed MV CAPE RAY (T-AKR 9679), she was assigned to the Ready Reserve Force on December 17, 1994. Afterwards, she was maintained in reduced operating status in a layberth at Portsmouth, Va. If required, she could be fully activated within 5 days. CAPE RAY was downgraded effective October 1, 2025, from the Ready Reserve Force to retention status for logistics support, shifting to the James River Reserve Fleet at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on November 18, 2025.

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Crew List:

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

Built in 1977 at Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Kobe, Japan, the roll-on/roll-off ship that would later become MV CAPE RAY began life in commercial service. Maritime Administration vessel records show her operating under the name SEASPEED ASIA from 1977 to 1981 and then as SAUDI MAKKAH from 1981 into the early 1990s, before the United States government acquired the vessel as part of the post-Cold War sealift posture that relied heavily on commercially built ships held in reserve for contingencies.

On April 29, 1993, the United States Maritime Administration acquired the ship, and on May 4, 1993, she entered the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia. On February 1, 1994, the ship was renamed CAPE RAY, and as the Maritime Administration's sealift planning matured in the mid-1990s, she was brought into the Ready Reserve Force on December 17, 1994, with her readiness maintained in reduced operating status so she could transition rapidly to full operating status when called. In this period and afterward, MV CAPE RAY remained a government-owned, contractor-operated roll-on/roll-off platform - an arrangement intended to preserve surge capacity without the cost of keeping the ship continuously crewed at sea - while still keeping her suitable for rapid activation, sea trials, and mission tasking as needed.

Across the following decade, MV CAPE RAY was repeatedly exercised within the United States' readiness validation framework for surge sealift. Maritime Administration fact sheets attribute multiple "Turbo Activation" events to the ship in the 2000-2008 period, reflecting the recurring "no-notice" activation construct used to test whether reserve shipping, its maintenance posture, and the labor pipeline could meet Department of Defense timelines. These activations, while not always accompanied by publicly released port-by-port itineraries, were designed to verify that engineering plants, hotel services, cargo systems, and navigation/communications suites could be brought online quickly and operated safely through underway evaluations. By 2012, Maritime Administration documentation also notes the installation of a slewing stern ramp, a material change aimed at improving roll-on/roll-off usability by expanding the ship's ability to interface with varying berth and pier arrangements.

The defining chapter in MV CAPE RAY's modern service came from the international effort to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war. After the United States announced that MV CAPE RAY had been selected for the mission, the ship was modified to embark two field deployable hydrolysis systems - mobile chemical neutralization plants intended to break down certain chemical warfare agents and precursors into effluent suitable for later commercial disposal. Beginning on December 2, 2013, the ship underwent a rapid installation and modification period that lasted roughly six weeks, after which she moved into a deployment posture with a mixed team that combined civilian merchant mariners and specialized chemical handling personnel. On January 27, 2014, MV CAPE RAY departed the Hampton Roads area for the Mediterranean, and on February 13, 2014 she arrived at Naval Station Rota, Spain, for a scheduled port visit and staging as the broader maritime removal plan progressed under the joint United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons framework.

The operational pivot point came in early July 2014, when priority Syrian chemicals were transferred for at-sea neutralization. On July 2, 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons publicly reported that 600 metric tonnes of Priority 1 chemicals had been transloaded at the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy from the Danish cargo ship ARK FUTURA onto MV CAPE RAY, with inspectors continuously monitoring the operation. The same announcement described parallel movements by other vessels supporting the overall disposal plan, including the Norwegian ship TAIKO, while confirming that MV CAPE RAY would proceed into international waters in the Mediterranean to begin neutralization operations at sea. Once underway on station, the ship's hydrolysis systems processed the chemicals over a multi-week evolution. Publicly released mission summaries describe the destruction of roughly 600 metric tons in total, including approximately 580 metric tons of DF (a sarin precursor) and about 20 metric tons of HD (mustard agent), with processing conducted over about 42 days. Contemporaneous reporting indicate the ship completed the at-sea neutralization phase by August 17, 2014. After the at-sea work concluded, the resulting hydrolysate required shoreside handling. The ship's waste offload was reported complete by September 5, 2014, and MV CAPE RAY returned to Portsmouth, Virginia, on September 17, 2014, closing the operational cycle of one of the most unusual missions ever assigned to a Ready Reserve Force roll-on/roll-off ship.

Following that specialized deployment, MV CAPE RAY reverted to the broader sealift readiness role for which she had been maintained, and she continued to appear in Maritime Administration inventories and readiness documentation as a government surge asset. She was among the vessels associated with the large-scale readiness stress tests that intensified in the late 2010s as concerns grew about the age and reliability of the surge sealift fleet. Beginning on September 16, 2019, the United States Transportation Command ordered a major sealift readiness exercise ("Turbo Activation 19-Plus") that activated dozens of ships across multiple layberths. The comprehensive after-action report lists CAPE RAY among the participating vessels at the Maritime Administration's Portsmouth, Virginia layberth and records that, while she generally succeeded in required checks, she received partial credit in specific evaluated categories (such as certain bow/stern thruster and distilling plant criteria) rather than a clean sheet in every graded area. In a later readiness surge, maritime labor reporting also lists CAPE RAY among ships activated during a second activation period that began in late August 2020, again highlighting the ship's continuing use as a callable, crewable asset within the reserve sealift ecosystem.

By 2025, Maritime Administration inventory publications show a significant administrative shift in MV CAPE RAY's status. Monthly inventories earlier in 2025 still listed her in the Ready Reserve Force at Portsmouth, Virginia, but by the reporting period covering November 2025 the Maritime Administration recorded that CAPE RAY was downgraded effective October 1, 2025, from the Ready Reserve Force to retention status for logistics support, and that she shifted to the James River Reserve Fleet at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on November 18, 2025. The Maritime Administration's end-of-year inventory for December 31, 2025, then placed CAPE RAY in the retention roll-on/roll-off category with a logistics support status at the James River location, while still identifying her as remaining in government service - an outcome consistent with a ship retained for support or reserve purposes but no longer held in the same rapid-response readiness tier as the Ready Reserve Force roster.

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MV CAPE RAY Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by me and shows the CAPE RAY at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on October 27, 2010.

The photo below was taken by me and shows the CAPE RAY at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on May 6, 2012.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the CAPE RAY at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on October 28, 2013.

The photos below were taken by me and show the CAPE RAY arriving at Bremen, Germany, to offload the remains of the neutralized Syrian chemcial weapons. The ship neutralized more than 600 metric tons of the chemicals while in the Mediterranean and subsequently transported them to Finland and Germany for final disposal. The photos were taken on September 4, 2014.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the CAPE RAY at her layberth at Portsmouth, Va., on October 6, 2015.

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

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