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World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

A public reference property of Baalvion

Open data · every figure carries its source

World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

Ferry

MV Malaspina

IMO 5218183MMSI 367143000Call sign W56803United StatesBuilt 1963

Operated by Alaska Marine Highway

Photo: Gillfoto · CC BY-SA 3.0 · file

Largest in this registry

#37,237

of 84,014 with a recorded tonnage

Largest ferry

#298

of 882 of this type with a recorded tonnage

Largest in its fleet

of 11 in this fleet with a recorded tonnage

In brief

About MV Malaspina

Full article ↗

MV Malaspina, colloquially known as the Mal, is a mainline ROPAX ferry and the original Malaspina-class vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System. Malaspina is named after the Malaspina Glacier, which, in turn, is named after Captain Don Alessandro Malaspina, an Italian navigator and explorer who explored the northwest coast of North America in 1791. Malaspina is nearly identical to her sister ship, MV Matanuska.
Malaspina was designed by Philip F. Spaulding and Associates, constructed in 1963 at the Lockheed Shipbuilding yards in Seattle, Washington, and elongated in 1972 at the Willamette Iron and Steel Company in Portland, Oregon. As a mainline ferry, she served the larger of the Inside Passage communities, such as Ketchikan, Petersburg, and Sitka, but her route spanned the entirety of the Inside Passage, beginning runs in either Bellingham, Washington, or Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, and running to the northernmost Alaskan Panhandle community of Skagway. From the late 1990s until being laid up in 2019, Malaspina operated mostly during the summers as a "dayboat" in the upper Lynn Canal, making daily round trips between Juneau and Skagway with stops in Haines.
Malaspina's amenities included a hot-food cafeteria, a solarium, forward, aft, movie, and business lounges, 54 four-berth cabins, and 29 two-berth cabins.

Vessel particulars

Identification and dimensions

Every value is as recorded in the source. Blanks are values the source does not hold — none is estimated from a sister ship or a class average.

Identification

IMO number: 5218183
IMO check digit: Valid
MMSI: 367143000
Call sign: W56803
Flag state: United States
Port of registry: —
Vessel class: —
Status: in service

Construction

Type: Ferry
Builder: Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company
Yard number: 113
Launched: —
Year built: 1963
Designed to carry: —
Owner: Alaska Marine Highway System
Operator on record: Alaska Marine Highway

Measurements

Gross tonnage: 9,121
Net tonnage: —
Displacement: —
Length overall: 124.0 m
Beam: 74.0 m
Draft: 16.0 m
Service speed: —
Passenger capacity: 450

In context

How MV Malaspina compares

Every figure in this section is a count, a rank or a percentile over vessels actually held in this registry — not over the world fleet, which is larger. Nothing here is estimated.

At 9,121 gross tons, MV Malaspina is the 37,237th largest of the 84,014 vessels in this registry that report a tonnage. The median across that set is 5,994 GT, so this hull is about 1.5 times the typical vessel on record here. The largest measures 499,167 GT.

Among the 1,234 ferrys held here, it ranks 298th by tonnage — larger than 66% of that group. Their median tonnage is 3,908 GT, and the largest tenth begin at 25,454 GT. The flag most often flown by this group is Japan (241 ships). The yard that appears most often against it is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, with 34 hulls on record.

United States is the country of registry for 2,278 vessels in this directory, of which MV Malaspina is the 339th largest by tonnage. The most common class under that flag is vessels this registry holds no type classification for (977 ships), and the median vessel measures 1,706 GT. Browse every ship flagged United States.

Narrowing to both dimensions at once, this registry holds 33 ferrys flying the United States flag, of which 3 are larger by tonnage.

MV Malaspina was built in 1963, making it 63 years old. It is one of 270 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 1,002 GT; within it this ship is the 16th largest. Across the whole of the 1960s the registry holds 4,074 vessels, median 844 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.

The registry attributes 12 vessels to Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company, with a median tonnage of 9,214 GT, delivered between 1954 and 1977. See the rest of that yard’s output.

At 124.0 m overall, MV Malaspina is 20.0 m longer than the 104.0 m median for ferrys on record, with a beam of 74.0 m and a draft of 16.0 m.

IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 5218183 this registry holds 11 other vessels, whose median build year is 1954 and which range from 1914 to 1963. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 1963.

Its IMO number, 5218183, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 5×7 + 2×6 + 1×5 + 8×4 + 1×3 + 8×2 = 103 — and the last digit of that total, 3, must equal the seventh digit, 3. It does, so this number is well formed.

Nearest by tonnage among ferrys

Ship	Built	Gross tonnage
Ionian Star	1971	9,149
Salvatore	1982	9,131
MS Lene	1973	9,124
MV Malaspina (this ship)	1963	9,121
Aratika	1974	9,035
Panagia Krimniotissa	1973	9,021
Mentari Nusantara

MV Malaspina

About MV Malaspina

Identification and dimensions

How MV Malaspina compares

Built alongside at Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company

Other ships operated by Alaska Marine Highway

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