The Rover was originally built for Moore-McCormack Lines as the Mormacsea and was intended for their service to the Baltic, where it is cold. Note the little enclosed and heated cabin on the extreme bow, which was originally intended as a shelter for a bow lookout.

This was one of 4 so-called Seabridge" class cargo ships that were designed as combination Ro-Ro, container, reefer and general cargo ships. They had cargo hatches on deck, had container cell guides below deck, and the lower holds were refrigerated. They also had a stern ramp accessing the upper tween deck, which ran uninterrupted for the entire length of the ship. The "Seabridge" ships were sort of seagoing "jacks-of-all-trades-and-masters-of-none". In other words, they could do a lot of things, but did not do any of them particularly efficiently. As a result, no further examples of this type of ship were ever built.

Despite the battleship-gray pint job, the Rover was not a naval vessel. She belonged to Central Gulf Lines and was operated on charter to the Military Sealift Command. Note the yellow and red and white Central Gulf colors, on the funnel. I was on the Rover for 6 months not long before this photo was taken. I got off her in Guam in February 1991. She was certainly well named. I joined her in North Carolina, from where we transported ammunition to the Persian Gulf. The then sailed her to Diego Garcia, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, back to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and, from there, to Guam. That's a lot of water under the keel in six months. Small wonder she looked a bit beat!

Not an auxiliary but a civilian, multi-purpose dry cargo /ro-ro ship chartered to carry supplies for US military personnel based overseas