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Bulk carrier
Operated by United States Navy
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Bill Mesta · Public domain · file
Largest in this registry
#11,736
of 84,014 with a recorded tonnage
Largest bulk carrier
#1,460
of 6,489 of this type with a recorded tonnage
Largest in its fleet
#29
of 177 in this fleet with a recorded tonnage
In brief
USNS Wally Schirra (T-AKE-8) is a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship of the United States Navy, named in honor of Captain Wally Schirra (1923–2007), one of the Mercury Seven astronauts, who flew three times in space, on Mercury 8, Gemini 6A, and Apollo 7.
The contract to build Wally Schirra was awarded to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) of San Diego, California, on 11 January 2005. Her keel was laid down on 14 April 2008, and she was launched and christened 8 March 2009 in a ceremony held at the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego. Serving as ship's sponsor, Josephine Schirra christened the ship in honor of her late husband.
Wally Schirra is the eighth ship of the Lewis and Clark class, and as part of Military Sealift Command's Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force, Wally Schirra is crewed by 124 civil service mariners and 11 Navy Sailors. The ship is designed to operate independently for extended periods at sea and can carry two helicopters and additional military personnel to conduct vertical replenishment.
The Wally Schirra became the first U.S. naval vessel to undergo maintenance, repairs, and overhaul at a South Korean shipyard on March 13, 2024, after spending six months at Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean's shipyard.
Vessel particulars
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
Construction
Measurements
In context
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 43,758 gross tons, USNS Wally Schirra is the 11,736th 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 7.3 times the typical vessel on record here. The largest measures 499,167 GT.
Among the 6,890 bulk carriers held here, it ranks 1,460th by tonnage — larger than 77% of that group. Their median tonnage is 32,837 GT, and the largest tenth begin at 85,849 GT. The flag most often flown by this group is Panama (1,548 ships). The yard that appears most often against it is Oshima Shipbuilding, with 337 hulls on record.
United States is the country of registry for 2,278 vessels in this directory, of which USNS Wally Schirra is the 104th 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 37 bulk carriers flying the United States flag, of which none is larger than USNS Wally Schirra.
USNS Wally Schirra was built in 2009, making it 17 years old. It is one of 2,834 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 11,673 GT; within it this ship is the 514th largest. Across the whole of the 2000s the registry holds 18,605 vessels, median 9,957 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.
The registry attributes 48 vessels to NASSCO, with a median tonnage of 43,758 GT, delivered between 1960 and 2021. See the rest of that yard’s output.
At 210.0 m overall, USNS Wally Schirra is 20.0 m longer than the 190.0 m median for bulk carriers on record, with a beam of 32.3 m and a draft of 9.1 m.
IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 9345116 this registry holds 63 other vessels, whose median build year is 2007 and which range from 2004 to 2017. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 2009.
Its IMO number, 9345116, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 9×7 + 3×6 + 4×5 + 5×4 + 1×3 + 1×2 = 126 — and the last digit of that total, 6, must equal the seventh digit, 6. It does, so this number is well formed.
Nearest by tonnage among bulk carriers
| Ship | Built | Gross tonnage |
|---|---|---|
| Aeolian Vision | 2011 | 43,767 |
| Inspiration | 2010 | 43,764 |
| Sylvia | 2010 | 43,764 |
| USNS Wally Schirra (this ship) | 2009 | 43,758 |
| Ruby Star | 2011 | 43,753 |
| Izabella M | 2011 | 43,753 |
| Legend I |
Record
Events recorded against this vessel in the source, with the dates the source gives. An event with no date is listed last rather than assigned one.
Class
| Ship | IMO | Flag | Built | Gross tonnage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USNS Lewis and Clark | 9271418 | United States | 2006 | 43,758 |
| USNS Alan Shepard | 9284350 | United States | 2007 | 43,758 |
| USNS Sacagawea | 9271420 | United States | 2007 | 43,758 |
| USNS Amelia Earhart | 9319818 | United States | 2008 | 43,758 |
| USNS Robert E. Peary | 9319806 | United States | 2008 | 43,758 |
| USNS Richard E. Byrd | 9300609 | United States | 2008 | 43,758 |
| USNS Carl Brashear | 9345104 | United States | 2009 | 43,758 |
| USNS Matthew Perry | 9383625 | United States | 2010 | 43,758 |
| USNS Charles Drew | 9508287 | United States | 2010 | 43,758 |
| USNS Washington Chambers | 9551997 | United States | 2011 | 43,758 |
| USNS William McLean | 9552006 | United States | 2011 | 43,758 |
| USNS Medgar Evers | 9593115 | United States | 2012 | 43,758 |
Same fleet
Provenance
Vessel recordWikidata, released under CC0, keyed on this ship’s IMO number.
Written summaryQuoted from USNS Wally Schirra on English Wikipedia, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.
PhotographBy U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Bill Mesta, reused under Public domain.
| 2010 |
| 43,753 |