MV Lituya

History
Name	Lituya
Namesake	Lituya Glacier, adjacent to Lituya Bay
Owner	Alaska Marine Highway System
Port of registry	United States
Route	Metlakatla–Ketchikan
Builder	Conrad Shipyards, Morgan City, Louisiana
Launched	2004
Commissioned	2004
Homeport	Metlakatla, Alaska
Status	in active service
General characteristics
Length	180 ft (55 m)
Beam	50 ft (15 m)
Draft	10 ft (3.0 m)
Decks	One vehicle deck
Ramps	Port, starboard, and aft ro-ro loading
Installed power	2,000 hp (1,491 kW)
Speed	12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Capacity	150 passengers 18 vehicles

MV Lituya is a shuttle ferry for the Alaska Marine Highway System.

Lituya was built by Conrad Shipyards in Morgan City, Louisiana in 2004. The Lituya is the smallest vessel in the ferry system and, as of 2006 exclusively serving the 16.5-nautical-mile (30.6 km) Metlakatla–Ketchikan shuttle route, thus making it the only AMHS vessel to serve Metlakatla. The Lituya is one of the three ferry system vessels designed to operate only in the day (the others are the fast ferries M/V Chenega and M/V Fairweather), so it homeports in Metlakatla where its crew of six also resides. The Lituya has no food service on board and is also the only Alaska Marine Highway vessel to feature an open car deck (the design of the Lituya was based on offshore oil platform supply vessels).

During the night of 30 January 2009, the ship came loose from its moorings in Metlakatla, Alaska while unmanned. It drifted about a mile, running up on Scrub Island in Port Chester harbor. Winds at the time were averaging 26 mph (42 km/h) with gusts to 80 mph (130 km/h); seas were 8 feet (2.4 m). The hull was reported intact but some hull plates were bent and the keel cooler appeared to be leaking antifreeze.

External links

• Official Alaska Marine Highway System website