MV Wickersham

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Career
Commissioned: 1968
Classification: Unknown
Home Port:
Other Ports: Seattle {WA), Prince Rupert (BC), Haines, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka
Decommissioned: 1974
Fate: Sold to Sally Line
General characteristics
Displacement: Unknown
Length: 363 ft (110 m)
Beam:
Draught:
Horsepower:
Speed:
Capacity: Passengers, 1,300
Automobiles, Unknown
Access: Bow
One vehicle deck
Named After: James Wickersham, an Alaska district judge

The M/V Wickersham was a mainline ferry vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway.

The M/V Wickersham was the second vessel, after the M/V Chilkat, in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet to not have been constructed specifically for AMHS, but was rather acquired for from the Stena Line, where it was known as the Stena Britannica and served the Kiel, Germany-Gothenburg, Sweden route. Constructed just one year prior to its purchase by AMHS in April 1968, her arrival allowed and status as an "oceangoing" vessel AMHS to expand the southern terminus of its route system south to Washington and the Port of Seattle.

Due to the Jones Act and laws of cabotage, however, the Wickersham could only undergo its Washington-Alaska voyages with an intermediate stop in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Further complicating her service was her complicated bow unloading system which was only compatible with AMHS ports in Haines, Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka, in addition to the ports of Seattle and Prince Rupert. Her large size and draft which served her well in the turbulent waters of Dixon Entrance and other exposed portions of the Alaska-Washington voyage, were too great to slip through passages of water such as Peril Strait enroute to Sitka which forced her to approach Sitka from the outer coast of Baranof Island and through the Pacific Ocean.

With the debut of the M/V Columbia, the marine highway's new flagship vessel, in 1974, the Wickersham was sold to the British Sally Line as the Viking 6, where she sailed from Stockholm to Helsinki.

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