T/S State of Michigan - ex-Persistent T-AGOS 6
Of the seven state maritime academies it is the only one located on freshwater. It is also the only such institution offering deck cadets a license which will allow them to sail as an officer on a large tonnage vessel that is in Great Lakes or oceans service. Originally the college used two of its own vessels, the Hudson and the Allegheny, for sea training. Within a few years the expense of maintaining the vessels led to cadets being externs aboard Great Lakes commercial vessels. That lasted until the arrival of the T/S (Training Ship) State of Michigan in 2002. The vessel is owned and maintained by the federal government, and used exclusively by the Academy.
The Traverse City-based ship, T/S State of Michigan, works as a floating classroom for Great Lakes Maritime Academy students. As cadets progress through the Academy, they learn the industry first hand by completing essential sea time aboard commercial ships of the Great Lakes and oceans. Students of the Great Lakes Maritime Academy spend about 75 days on board the T/S State of Michigan. The ship is part of a four-year college program where students can earn a bachelors degree and merchant marine credentials. The program is based out of the Northwestern Michigan College Great Lakes Campus.
The Maritime Academy is home to the 224-foot former Navy submarine surveillance ship Persistent, which is now T/S State of Michigan. The T/S State of Michigan was formerly named Persistent and was used by the U.S. Navy for submarine surveillance. The vessel is relatively new, having been built in 1986 as part of a series of 18 Stalwart-class T-AGOS vessels designed to tow highly sensitive sonar arrays for the tracking of Soviet submarines. As the Soviet threat diminished in the 1990s, the Navy decided to decommission the T-AGOS fleet, and in 1998 Persistent and sister ship Vindicator were transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard for primary use in drug interdiction. While under Coast Guard ownership, the Persistent was overhauled and repowered, but eventually deemed too slow for offshore drug enforcement and made available to other government agencies.
In the summer of 2001, the ship went to the United States Maritime Administration under the U.S. Department of Transportation, which still owns the ship today. Working through the U.S. Maritime Administration, the Maritime Academy negotiated the transfer of the vessel to our harbor in Traverse City. The training ship supplements other training vessels and allows our cadets to put into practice the theory and skill sets taught in the classroom. Cadets take great pride in the State of Michigan and value the sea time underway prior to their commercial sea projects.
