Sea Transportation: November 10, 2002

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The U.S. Navy is building a new fleet supply ship, the T-AKE class, to replace three current supply ship types (ammo, cargo and fuel ships). There will be 12 ships in the class, each costing about $334 million. These will replace 16 existing supply ships that will be reaching the end of the 35 year service life in 2007. There are berths for 209 people on the ship. The T-AKE is a 35,000 ton (displacement) ship that is 689 feet long and move along at 32 kilometers an hour. The ship can carry 6,000 tons of cargo and 2,380 tons of fuel. The first two ships of the class will be named "Lewis and Clark" and "Sacagawea."