USS Texas - Until 2O11

Special Reports on USS Texas BB~35 Dreadnought. .

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Cpt Spike Mike
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USS Texas - Until 2O11

Post by Cpt Spike Mike » 05-12-2006 11:48 AM

Some excellent news was printed in the Thursday, May11th edition of the Houston Chronicle's Pasadena/Baytown section. The title reads "Battleship set to get makeover" and it's been a long time coming.

Pland were recently outlined by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commision and the Battleship Texas Foundation and will see the last WWI-era dreadnought to be dry-docked, refurbished and ready for public display by 2O11. "Of course, this is subject to change, but we believe if everything goes according to plan, that's when she'll be ready for the public." according to ship & museum curator Barry Ward, who also said, "I might add that five years is a brief time for a project of this scale."

The 27,OOO-ton warship (now reduced to about 23,OOO tons) has not been out of the water for repairs since 199O, when she was towed to Todd Shipyard in Galveston. But now, her towing days are over; the ship was commisioned in 1914 and is no longer strong enough to survive being towed, especially across open gulf.

So, if the lady can't go to the shipyard, the next best thing will be done by bringing the shipyard to the lady, so to speak. The plans are now being worked out to construct a graving berth on site. A graving berth consists of concrete forms, contoured to the ship's hull. A cofferdam will be set at one end and the water will be pumped out, allowing maintenance workers access to her hull. The public will also be able to walk around and see the ship from below thw waterline, including her rudder which is frozen at 13º to port (this would also compicate a tow).

The price for this type of construction is estimated at just over $2O million; park officials are confident in securing a $16.1 million federal grant as well as raising a $4.1 million grant, as part of federal requirements. And depending on where she is temporarily moored out of her slip, she may be inaccesible to the general public for a period of 1O to 12 months.

These plans have been kicked around for the past few years and are finally coming to fruition. When completed, she will be the first floating museum in the United States to have such a facility. There are also plans for a new complex of buildings, including the now-present gift shop & snack bar, as well as historic displays and memorial markers. But curator Barry has insisted from the beginning that, "those are a bunch of buildings. What really matters is the ship."

So, this means, over the next few years, you pirates will have a first-hand look at what's going on with this project including pictures, video and whatever else I can think up. :)

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Jon-Marcus
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Post by Jon-Marcus » 05-12-2006 02:21 PM

Excellent, Capt. This Lady should be preserved. She served well, and should be honored. Thank you for the info. :)
"You have forgotten the face of your father." Roland Deschain

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Post by Cpt Spike Mike » 05-13-2006 02:26 AM

Yes Jon-Marcus, in addition to our ongoing efforts, this major project has been in the works for close to three years now. It looks like it's finally going to be taken seriously by those in charge (meaning the state legislature).

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Post by Cpt Spike Mike » 05-18-2006 02:31 PM

This process will take several months to begin. The federal grant looks good but hasn't gone through yet. Also, state and local efforts will be brought together, as well as securing and setting plans & material for the project.

This all started back in November of 2OO3, when former naval architect/engineer Tom Sullivan took a look at the ship. (Tom's also with the Battleship Texas Foundation as well as the 1st Texas Volunteers) He and others (including active duty Navy personnel) determined that the ship is now so old that it may not survive a tow. In 1988 she was towed to Todd Shipyard and that was no pleasure cruise. This time, she may not make it much farther out of Galveston Bay.

This has been an uphill fight, as the predicted budget for a tow-&-fix-&-towback repair was $12-15 million; considerably cheaper than the $2O million for the new project. (that was from 2OO3, and now the tow repair would probably be equal to the new project). This left some in the state legislature with the idea that, not only would it save money, but then they might get a chance to ride along on the tow. Good public service work, PR photo ops, stuff like that.

The problem is that most of these politicians have probably never seen the ship, nor heard 2O-foot waves rolling along a hull. They've not talked to anyone who worked the Galveston tow, and don't know there we two 375-hp diesel pumps onboard and running flat-out the entire time. They don't know that the ship's crew were frantically plugging leaks and closing compartments to control flooding. Hell, they just don't know.

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Post by Corvid » 05-18-2006 04:01 PM

As we prepare to say goodbye to another great lady the USS Oriskany CV34. She will now be a sunken habitat in the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.pensacolachamber.com/armedse ... iskany.htm

and for her history:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-u ... o/cv34.htm


From John Steinbeck: The Log From the Sea of Cortez chapter two

"How deep this feeling must be, the giver and the reciever again; the boat designed through milleniums of trial and error by the human consciousness, the boat which has no counterpart in nature unless it be a dry leaf fallen by accident in a stream. And man recieving back from the Boat a warping of his psyche so that the sight of a boat riding in the water clenches a fist of emotion in his chest. A horse, a beautiful dog, arouses sometimes a quick emotion, but of inanimate things only a boat can do it. And a boat, above all other inanimate things, is personified in man's mind. When we have been steering, the boat has seemed sometimes nervous and irritable, swinging off course before the correction could be made, slapping her nose into the quartering wave. After a storm she has seemed tired and sluggish. Then, with the colored streamers set high and snapping, she is very happy, her nose held high and her stern bouncing a little like the buttocks of a proud and confident girl. Some have said they have felt a boat shudder before she struck a rock, or cry when she beached and the surf poured into her. This is not mysticism, but identifications; man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools, has in turn recieved a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul. His spirit and the tendrils of his feeling are so deep in a boat that the identification are complete. It is very easy to see why the Viking wished his body to sail away in an unmanned ship, for neither could exist without the other; or, failing that, how it was necessary that the things he loved most, his women and his ship, lie with him and thus keep closed the circle. In the great fire on the shore, all three started at least in the same direction, and in the gathering ashes who could say where man or woman stopped and the ship began?

This strange identification of man with boat is so complete that probably no man has ever destroyed a boat by bomb or torpedo or shell without murder in his heart; and were it not for the sad trait of self-destruction that is in our species, he could not do it. Only the trait of murder which our species seems to have could allow us the sick, exultant sadness of sinking a ship, for we can murder the things we love best, which are, of course, ourselves."
Last edited by Corvid on 05-18-2006 04:09 PM, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Corvid » 05-18-2006 04:03 PM

The Oriskany in October 1966, Gulf of Tonkin, with foreward magazines on fire.

Those of us on the Hornet in 1966 heard, at every general quarters or battle station drill, endless tales of the Oriskany fire.
Last edited by Corvid on 05-18-2006 04:09 PM, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Corvid » 05-18-2006 04:41 PM

The Oriskany's bridge, circa 2003.

http://www.divemiami.com/ussoriskany_inspection.htm

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Post by Cpt Spike Mike » 05-20-2006 07:02 PM

You'll still be able to go see the USS Oriskany. All you'll need are scuba lessons. May be hard to find docent tour guides.

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Post by Shirleypal » 01-10-2007 12:54 AM

Bump

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