Originally posted by eocoolj
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Let's look at Oriskany's history first. They tried to scrap her, twice. Each time the company she was sold to defaulted and the Navy had to take repossession. I would imagine that in the end, faced with the need to get her off the books, shallow sixing her was the best option....and gave the Navy good public relations. I'll get to all the interesting little things, engineering wise, about ship scrapping in a moment.
Look at the construction history: Launched after Trinity. Construction suspended at 85% a year after Trinity. Torn down to 60%, rebuilt, commissioned in 1950. I've got a nasty suspiscion that the metal added after Trinity potentially radiated the armor before (assuming) Trinity, thus reducing the value as radiation free steel. Now, that's just a guess, but it works on a similar but not the same notion to decommissioning a nuclear ship or power plant. In this case, assuming that it is correct, it is not enough to harm you, but it is enough to reduce its viability as instrumentation shielding. Physically speaking.
You make the comment that it is possible if one has the money. Who has the money? Let's look at the three potential people in the deal: the Navy, the breakers, the lab. The Navy or MARAD wants to get the ship off its books ....but given the repossessions, it would seem that they are still responsible for it until it is gone. The breakers want to make money. And the lab wants to do what it does while not spending a whole lot of money doing things that support its mission without making accomplishments.
Ship Breaking, at least in the first world, takes capital, it costs people thousands of dollars a day for a berth, and one can't afford to sit around hoping that someone will buy a certain piece.......because if they do, they go bankrupt. One has to move what they have, one way or the other.
This site: http://www.orednet.org/~rbayer/salvage/ should give enough references of how financially unsure that business is. Now, I haven't been thru all the listings there to verify them all ....... but I have researched the subject enough to believe that the ones I have read are true. That's the economic side of the issue.
Engineering: I know of three ways at least of scrapping a ship. All of them involve the basic principle of keeping the ship balanced while it is taken apart. In short, one does not start at the belt armor.
If one has environmental concerns in mind, they can tie the ship to a dock or put it in an inlet, put out containment barriers, cut the ship down from the top leaving enough elevation of the outer skin to prevent runoff, and continue doing so until they can drag the ship ashore. As with the USS Cabot or USS Enterprise (both navsource). One of the key elements is the keep the ship in trim while it is in the water, so as a part of the bow is lost,something is taken from the stern and visa a versa.
Or, one can put the ship into the drydock and work on it there, like the USS Barney at Philly (navsource). That makes containment easier but can drive the cost up.
If there isn't a concern for the environment or the workers, then one might go the way of Alang and beach the ship. such as the ex-Norway (see bottom of page at http://www.midshipcentury.com/) or the Moscow (http://www.bobhenneman.info/Breakers5.htm).
Now, another little point or two on economics. Those who own the ship have to find someway to get rid of it. Ie, finding someone to buy it while keeping up with the regulations that they are under. Many years ago, there was an article that showed how the Navy wasted money by sending ships to the torch while still having tools aboard such as drill presses. Well, the opposite side of the coin was that it would both involve cost to remove all such devices from the ship and by leaving such things aboard the ship, it increased its selling value. It wasn't worth the cost to the owner to go in and remove such tools from the ship but to the person breaking up the ship, it was an additional bonus.
Ever wonder why we are doing so many SINKEX's these days? I would suspect that for a deep water sinking, the cost of preparation is a lot less than continual storage or environmental clean up for scrapping.
It's not a simple business at all.
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