WWII-era ship to get repairs done in Norfolk

NORFOLK

The maritime relic Sturgis, a World War II Liberty ship converted by the Army into a nuclear-power barge, is being towed to a Norfolk shipyard today for a $2.5 million maintenance job.

The first-of-its-kind barge supplied power to the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 to 1975 during the Vietnam War and is now part of the James River Reserve Fleet. Depending on the weather, it will be towed to BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair and should pass by the downtown waterfront in the early afternoon.

The vessel will be put in dry dock for the four-to six-week job, undergoing a routine hull blasting and painting and miscellaneous repairs before being returned to the Reserve Fleet, said Candice Walters, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the barge. Its nuclear reactor was deactivated in the late '70s.