Tom Wenstadt, our Door County correspondent, reports that the T/S STATE OF MICHIGAN arrived via the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, Monday, August 18th, at the Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding yard here in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
The STATE OF MICHIGAN was built by Tacoma Boat Co. in Tacoma, Wash., in 1986 as the USNS PERSISTENT. It was designed to tow sensitive sonar arrays to track Soviet submarines. In 1998, the PERSISTENT was transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard then subsequently sold to the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in 2002 and renamed STATE OF MICHIGAN. The vessel is used to train merchant marine officers and crew and is stationed in Traverse City, Michigan.
Specifications:
Registration IMO # 8835451
Length 224 feet
Beam (width) 43 feet
Depth 20 feet
Capacity 1,472 tons
Power four 3,200 hp Caterpillar D 398 diesel electric generators, driving twin 1,600 hp electric drive motors on each shaft, one 550 hp bow thruster
Typical Speed 13 miles per hour
Crew 15 officers, 58 cadets
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Tom Wenstadt, who lives in Sturgeon Bay, is a retired marine engineer, having worked in the Great Lakes area for thirty-seven years. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University and is the author of Freighters of Manitowoc. He is a member of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society and the Door County Maritime Museum & Lighthouse Preservation Society. He is a volunteer archival assistant and docent for the JOHN PURVES.
Photo by Bob Kuhn: STATE OF MICHIGAN dated November 28, 2020 at Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding
