MSC PAO 97-28
May 21, 1997
For more information, contact:
Marge Holtz or Nancy Breen
(202) 685-5055

MSC awards contract to preposition ammo

When a crisis erupts and your troops need ammunition, they usually don't have the luxury of time. They need it now--and it’s Military Sealift Command’s job to get it to them. Toward this end, MSC awarded a time-charter contract in the amount of $47 million to Ultra Maritime, Inc. (a subsidiary of Sealift, Inc.), of Oyster Bay, N.Y., for the 59-month charter of MV Sea Pride.

Sea Pride is a container ship that will be used to preposition U.S. Air Force ammunition in the Mediterranean Sea. The vessel, which has the capacity to carry 1,922 containers, is currently foreign-flagged, but will be re-flagged as a U.S. vessel prior to beginning performance under the MSC contract. Cranes installed aboard the vessel makes it self-sustaining for loading and off-loading cargo.

MSC’s Afloat Prepositioning Force, to which Sea Pride will belong, consists of 34 ships that serve as at-sea warehouses--laden with war stocks and other supplies that are needed quickly when U.S. troops are called to respond to an overseas crisis.