Military Sealift Command (MSC) chartered Motor Vessel Cape Henry (T-AKR 5067) continued its voyage through the Pacific and arrived at Sattahip, Thailand, to offload equipment in support of Joint Exercise Cobra Gold 2025 (CG25), Feb. 17-21.

Thailand was the ship’s first point of discharge at the ports of Toong Pronge and Sattahip, and the ship offloaded approximately 255 cargo items and containers. Cape Henry departed Thailand Feb. 21 and journeyed to its next port to offload more equipment in support of other missions.

The transportation evolution is called Operation Pathways and is an overarching umbrella that supports the deployment and redeployment of equipment coming from the U.S. to support a number of bilateral and multilateral training events throughout Southeast Asia, and usually begins with the offload in Thailand and continues on to other Southeast Asia locations to support other events.

The operation, and the joint exercise demonstrates the U.S.’s ongoing readiness to project forces throughout the region in support of Allies and partners to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Cape Henry is one of three H-class ships and is part of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) fleet of vessels. The RRF is a subset of vessels within the Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) National Defense Reserve Fleet ready to support the rapid worldwide deployment of U.S. military forces.

According to the MARAD website, RFF provides nearly 50 percent of government-owned surge sealift capability.

Cape Henry is a 750-foot long roll-on, roll-off (RO/RO) 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 cargo.

Despite its massive presence, the ship’s characteristically low draft allows for this impressive amount of tonnage while still getting into smaller ports.

The vessel can carry a significant amount of containerized and RO/RO cargo, which makes it large enough to be militarily useful, but small enough to get into the smaller ports.

“This ship is really perfect for this kind of mission,” said contracted mariner Capt. Conor Sullivan, Cape Henry’s master. “It is so versatile because of the way it’s setup. The combination of the RO/RO ramp, and having a high capacity crane allows us to go essentially anywhere.”

If the ship is in an environment that prevents the use of the RO/RO ramp, such as a smaller pier, cargo handlers can move vehicles and cargo to the upper deck and discharge the items with the 40-ton crane.

“We can do a lot of stuff that other ships can’t,” said Sullivan. “We can go into ports and put down our ramp and off load quickly, or we can go into port and offload the whole ship quickly with the crane, if we had to. That feature is not one that most ships have.”

As the ship arrived at the port, a detachment of Soldiers with the U.S. Army’s Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) led the Cape Henry offload.

The SDDC team boarded the vessel and directed the stevedores what to download, and how to download the cargo; and with the help of the exercise training audience, they directed them to safely discharge all the equipment.

“Once the items are off the vessel, they are staged at the marshalling area for onward movement to the respective training area,” said Army Lt. Col. Gregory B. Andrews, commander, 835th Transportation Battalion, 599th Transportation Brigade, SDDC, out of Okinawa, Japan. “We enable a training audience to build out their combat power by assisting in the safe execution and download of the vessel.”

The features of Cape Henry fully complemented the uniqueness of the exercise and facilitated an efficient discharge of all cargo.

“This platform is great because we love the RO/RO capability,” said Andrews. “It makes it really easy to be able to unlatch the stored vehicles and discharge them right off the ramp.”

To support the smooth discharge of equipment, MSC deployed a five-member Reserve-component team from various Reserve expeditionary port units (EPU) in the U.S. to assist with port operations.

“As an EPU, we’re here to liaison between the ship and MSC headquarters, so if there’s any issues with the offload, or with the ship, we can help address the situation,” said Lt. Cmdr. Sam C. Chiang, Navy Reserve Unit MSC Far East EPU, out of Navy Reserve Center Alameda, Calif. “The operation has gone as planned, with no issues. The cargo plan seemed to go smoothly.”

According to Chiang, an EPU is a highly mobile unit that can deploy rapidly anywhere in the world to support overseas contingency operations, setup port operations and establish presence where there is no MSC or U.S. Navy support established in order to receive cargo ships: government owned, government contracted or chartered ships.

“This was great training for us. I think we learned a lot working with the various stakeholders,” said Chiang. “This training opportunity allowed us to familiarize with the process of port operations with ships, and better engage with SDDC and all the other components of port operations.”

Joint Exercise Cobra Gold 25 – the 44th iteration of this exercise – exemplifies a longstanding Alliance between the United States and Thailand, and reflects a shared commitment to preserving a peaceful, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific region.

MSC directs and supports operations for approximately 140 civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships at sea, conduct specialized missions, preposition combat cargo at sea around the world, perform a variety of support services, and move military equipment and supplies to deployed U.S. forces.

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.