SS Cape Ann was my first USMM ship, in Oct 1990. I had always wanted to go to sea as a sparks. The union called and said they were waiting for a radio officer to sail and would depart once I arrived, at NorShipCo, Norfolk. I resigned from my job to go to Norfolk, but the ship did not even have running water when I arrived and the crew lived in a Holiday Inn in town and the ChMate drove us back and forth in a van. About 7 days later we moved aboard and got underway for sea trials after an FCC inspection of the radio room, which had a couple of problems that were fixed. My very first night at sea the auto alarm went off about 0300 and I went to the radio room expecting a false alarm. The auto alarms I remember from working on ships in the 50's were very prone to trouble, but immediately I heard, loud and clear, VCS in Canada "SOS SOS SOS." My knees began to shake. Not hearing anyone else answer I answered but it was an SOS relay and we were way too far away to help, just off Norfolk.
The ship was beautiful. The captain was a young fellow who was normally captain of one of the AMSEA preposition ships at Diego Garcia I think.
The day after we returned to Norfolk we were s paid off and the ship returned to the reserve fleet, only to be broken out again soon afterward. Meanwhile, I got an SL7 and stayed until after Desert Storm had ended. But what a beautiful ship. Those two ships changed my life. I could not be happy working in an office after that so quit a couple of years after the war and went back to sea, aboard the ammunition ship Buffalo Soldier, and wished I had done so sooner. It all began with SS Cape Ann.

1978 Deck Maine Maritime Academy w/ MMP out of NY/NJ my first 3rd mate site, captained by C.Tripolitis. On our inbound, we called Boston Ma. (an usual stop) to unload frozen shrimp, being from the Nth shore, my mother and brother enjoyed a nice breakfast aboard. A great start to a short,but very interesting,sea going experience.

I was Ordinary Seaman on the 4 to 8 watch in the Summer of 1965. I sailed out of the NMU Hall in Manhatten as a Summer (63, 64, 65) job when I was in College.

I had the best Summer jobs a boy ever had.

Does anybody have any details (beyond standard specs) or recollections of this ship, or her sisters (African(s) Comet, Mercury, Dawn & Meteor, Neptune & Sun)?