MV Malaspina

MV Malaspina, colloquially known as the Mal, is a mainline ROPAX ferry and the original Malaspina-class vessel for the Alaska Marine Highway System. Malaspina is named after the Malaspina Glacier, which, in turn, is named after Captain Don Alessandro Malaspina, an Italian navigator and explorer who explored the northwest coast of North America in 1791. Malaspina is nearly identical to her sister ship, MV Matanuska.

History
Name	Malaspina
Namesake	Malaspina Glacier, Yakutat, Alaska
Owner	Alaska Marine Highway System
Port of registry	United States
Builder	Lockheed Shipbuilding, Seattle, Washington
Launched	1963
Refit	1972
Homeport	Juneau, Alaska
Identification	IMO number: 5218183 MMSI number: 367143000 Callsign: WI6803
General characteristics
Class and type	Malaspina-class mainline ferry
Displacement	5,552 long tons (5,641 t)
Length	408 ft (124 m)
Beam	74 ft (23 m)
Draft	16 ft 9.96 in (5.1298 m)
Decks	One vehicle deck
Ramps	Aft, port, and starboard ro-ro loading
Installed power	8,000 hp (5,966 kW)
Speed	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
Capacity	500 passengers 88 vehicles

Malaspina was designed by Philip F. Spaulding and Associates, constructed in 1963 at the Lockheed Shipbuilding yards in Seattle, Washington, and elongated in 1972 at the Willamette Iron and Steel Company in Portland, Oregon. As a mainline ferry, she serves the larger of the Inside Passage communities, such as Ketchikan, Petersburg, and Sitka, but her route spans the entirety of the Inside Passage, beginning runs in either Bellingham, Washington, or Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, and running to the northernmost Alaskan Panhandle community of Skagway. Since the late 1990s, Malaspina has operated mostly during the summers as a "dayboat" in the upper Lynn Canal, making daily round trips between Juneau and Skagway with stops in Haines.

Malaspina's amenities include a hot-food cafeteria, a solarium, forward, aft, movie, and business lounges, 54 four-berth cabins, and 29 two-berth cabins. She formerly had a gift shop, but it was closed in 2014 as a cost-saving measure.[1]