Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

USS Texas

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #46
    The Battleship Texas Foundation is a very small organization. Maybe it's time to admit the problem is too big for them to tackle and bring in help. No disrespect to the BTF but this is a huge undertaking and the Texas appears to be headed to the point of no return.

    I had to chuckle when the linked article mentioned the Texas contaminating the Houston Ship Channel. Anyone from Texas would laugh too.

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by ArmorPiercing88 View Post
      I believe in fact Wisconsin and Iowa are required to keep the hulls in such a state that the vessels could be returned to service in an emergency, as unlikely as that is.
      You are correct. There are still Naval restrictions on those two ships. You can read them in detail in REVISION "B", Chapter 34 of my book.
      Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

      Comment


      • #48
        On the Texas, would it help them if they removed some of the machinery in the main spaces to relieve the weight on the hull and frames? Not dispose of it, maybe it could be displayed ashore. My understanding is that part of the problem is the weight of the machinery on the century old structure.

        Comment


        • #49
          Hi Rusty. Big fan. In fact I just ordered your book! It's arriving on Monday (Revision B). I thought I recall you mentioning on these boards that all reactivation-related requirements had since been lifted on the Iowas, or were you only referring to the New Jersey and Missouri? On that note, wouldn't those requirements have ended in 2009 when Va took possession of the Wisconsin?

          Thanks for being a great resource on these boards. I'm going on a cruise next week, and I can't wait to read your book out on the high seas.

          Comment


          • #50
            A few years ago the Legislature appropriated the funds to dry-dock the Texas but those funds ended up being used for repairs. Seems they just need to suck it up and spend the money needed to get the ship out of the water once and for all. I get angry that things like feral cats receive more money and attention in Texas than the historic ship. Really, no attention is paid to it except when something goes wrong and then it's quickly forgotten. Government funding is hard to come by in Texas but there is plenty of private money available if they can present a cogent plan and most importantly publicize it statewide and nationally. End rant.

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by ArmorPiercing88 View Post
              Hi Rusty. Big fan. In fact I just ordered your book! It's arriving on Monday (Revision B). I thought I recall you mentioning on these boards that all reactivation-related requirements had since been lifted on the Iowas, or were you only referring to the New Jersey and Missouri? On that note, wouldn't those requirements have ended in 2009 when Va took possession of the Wisconsin?

              Thanks for being a great resource on these boards. I'm going on a cruise next week, and I can't wait to read your book out on the high seas.
              Since I'm still alive for the next few months, I'm still in contact with the rest of the founding members of the Pacific Battleship Center and those restrictions apparently have not been lifted yet.

              On another note (of restrictions) when LBNSY was being put up for closure and paved over for a container terminal, Congress passed a use restriction saying that any area that used to be DOD property shall never lease out any space to the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO). When the Port of Long Beach opened up their 214 acre "Parking Lot", their main customer was Hanjin.

              Hanjin went bankrupt. Guess who is parking their containers there now?

              Yup! COSCO. To hell with legal restrictions, just make money.
              Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

              Comment


              • #52
                Historic USS Texas Turned Over to Foundation for Maintenance & Operation

                Beginning August 1, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department has passed operational control of the Battleship Texas to the nonprofit Battleship Texas Foundation. The foundation signed a 99-year lease according to a press release from the organization.

                The battleship has not been open to the public since August of 2019 in order to prepare the ship for transportation to a shipyard where it will undergo extensive repair work. The ship won’t be moved for months still.

                The ship will begin moving in November or December to arrive at an unknown shipyard in January or February. The shipyard will work on the ship for around a year.

                Rumors place the unidentified shipyard in Louisiana.

                Once the work is completed and the Texas travels back to its home dock, it is expected to re-open for public viewing. The foundation is aiming for the first quarter of 2022 for the re-opening but no official date has been set.

                Once it is re-opened to the public, the foundation will operate the ship and keep constant maintenance and preservation efforts going. The foundation will also be responsible for new experiences and programs related to the battleship.

                The foundation and the department reached an understanding in 2019 which makes the foundation responsible for maintaining the ship on behalf of the department and the state of Texas.

                Battleship Texas is the last remaining battleship to have participated in both World War I and World War II. Link
                ____________
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • #53
                  If true about being brought to a yard in Louisiana then they are going to bring her out into the open in deeper waters with her hull? Stay tuned with further info below that I just saw. Goal is to replace entire hull below the waterline...

                  https://battleshiptexas.org/battleship-updates/

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    The foam is an interesting solution. Did they go with the foam/tow idea because the hull couldn't be supported out of the water on a Heavy Lift Ship? If the goal is to replace the entire hull below the waterline that reinforces how fragile she is.

                    https://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/0...mpossibly.html

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOKA_Vanguard

                    Still, just to be safe, there are backup plans if the worst happens:

                    https://mythbusters.fandom.com/wiki/...g_Salvage_Myth

                    https://www.jiskha.com/questions/616...43-kg-which-is

                    Ultimately, will there be any lessons learned to use on the USS Olympia? The biggest lesson being finding a funding stream.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      I just realized I had a very tangential relationship with the USS Texas....VERY.

                      I went to a Catholic military prep school in Washington DC for High School.

                      Our Commandant of Cadets was a retired Field Artillery Colonel. I was serious about going to West Point and thought about FA as a branch. So I would spend free time with me and tell me war stories.

                      I remember him talking about being a forward observer at Cherbourg and calling in fire from the USS Texas.

                      Small world.

                      And I went to West Virginia so you figure out which West I went to....
                      “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                      Mark Twain

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Albany Rifles View Post
                        I just realized I had a very tangential relationship with the USS Texas....VERY.

                        I went to a Catholic military prep school in Washington DC for High School.

                        Our Commandant of Cadets was a retired Field Artillery Colonel. I was serious about going to West Point and thought about FA as a branch. So I would spend free time with me and tell me war stories.

                        I remember him talking about being a forward observer at Cherbourg and calling in fire from the USS Texas.

                        Small world.

                        And I went to West Virginia so you figure out which West I went to....
                        Then your former Commandant was likely in this picture somewhere. Note the huge splash from a German 240mm gun....

                        Click image for larger version

Name:	USS_Texas-11.jpg
Views:	2
Size:	238.4 KB
ID:	1479214
                        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          Originally posted by looking4NSFS View Post
                          The foam is an interesting solution. Did they go with the foam/tow idea because the hull couldn't be supported out of the water on a Heavy Lift Ship? If the goal is to replace the entire hull below the waterline that reinforces how fragile she is.

                          https://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/0...mpossibly.html

                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOKA_Vanguard

                          Still, just to be safe, there are backup plans if the worst happens:

                          https://mythbusters.fandom.com/wiki/...g_Salvage_Myth

                          https://www.jiskha.com/questions/616...43-kg-which-is

                          Ultimately, will there be any lessons learned to use on the USS Olympia? The biggest lesson being finding a funding stream.
                          From what I recall reading the Texas has some extremely heavy triple expansion engines sitting on the hull bottom unlike BBs of newer years with a multiple bottom and the Texas needs it replaced.

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Steady as she goes: Volunteers help restore Battleship Texas before dry dock repairs later this year

                            In a Pasadena warehouse, roughly 20 miles south of the Battleship Texas’ berth at the San Jacinto State Historic Site, a group of seven volunteers is hard at work restoring the historic ship’s anti-aircraft guns.

                            Twice a week, these volunteers, many of them veterans, show up at the warehouse for the tedious and unglamorous labor of helping, bit by bit, to restore the Battleship Texas to its majestic splendor. More than two dozen guns were removed from the ship over three days in March 2020 by a barge crane and hauled to warehouse space donated by NRG, where they have been disassembled, sandblasted, cleaned and repainted a sleek cadet blue.

                            Amid the hum and clangor of tools in the warehouse, Bruce Bramlett, the executive director of the Battleship Texas Foundation — the nonprofit that manages the ship’s museum — marveled at the progress.

                            “It’s pretty amazing, truly, to get to say, while we’re dealing with the (ship repairs), ‘Let's get all this off and let's get it restored so that when we're ready, we'll put it back on the trucks, take it to the shipyard, and put it all back on the ship,’” Bramlett said.

                            Progress being made as Battleship Texas restorations continue
                            The Battleship Texas has been undergoing extensive renovations since it closed to the public in early 2020. Preparations are being made to transport the ship to an as-yet-unidentified dry dock to repair its leaky hull. Volunteers continue to put hundreds of hours into repairing some of the battleship's guns, the ship's bell, and other features.

                            The 106-year old battleship, the last surviving dreadnought that fought in two world wars, has been closed to the public since August 2019 due to its decaying condition. The proud ship that once shelled the Normandy coast during D-Day and bombarded Okinawa in the Pacific has seen its steel hull laid waste by years of saltwater corrosion. A system of pumps constantly pushing water out of the hull is the only thing keeping the ship upright at its current berth in the Houston Ship Channel.

                            Texas Parks and Wildlife has spent at least $54 million maintaining and repairing the ship since 2009. The work included two phases of critical repairs to engine rooms as well as the installation of an emergency generator, additional pumps, and fuel storage to help address leaks.

                            A bill passed by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2019 provided $35 million to tow the battleship and repair it at a dry dock, a potentially risky operation. At one point, dry docks in Louisiana, Mobile, Ala., or Tampa, Fla. were floated as possible repair destinations. Bramlett said the foundation is discussing towing the ship to a dry dock in Galveston for repairs, though an agreement hasn't been finalized.

                            A portion of the state appropriation has gone toward getting the ship in good enough condition to tow. From July through December, a salvage company was hired by the foundation to begin a process called foaming — where the hull of the ship is fulled with polyurethane to ensure insulation and buoyancy.

                            “With the state appropriation, we're gonna make the ship watertight,” said Travis Davis, the vice president of ship operations for the Battleship Texas Foundation. “We went from, this time last year, 2,000 gallons per minute of water coming in the ship, and we’re less than five (gallons per minute) right now.”

                            Making the voyage
                            The towing of the ship will likely have to wait until after hurricane season, Bramlett said. He acknowledged that while there’s always some risk to towing a vessel as old as the Texas, he’s not “overly frightened” by the prospect. The foundation has run two different virtual simulations of the towing operation for marine engineers, the Coast Guard and the Houston Pilots Association, as well as the ship’s insurers. Bramlett said all parties came away convinced that the ship could be towed safely.

                            “I hear people say, ‘Oh my God, we’re gonna blink and it’s gonna sink to the bottom.’ No, it’s not,” Bramlett said. “If the absolute worst happened, we’d run her aground and we’d figure out how to fix it and pull her back out. The insurance companies are convinced that’s not gonna happen, or they wouldn’t insure any of this, and we can’t move (the ship) an inch without it being insured.”

                            But before the ship can be safely towed 40 miles down the Houston Ship Channel there is still much more restoration work to be done in the Pasadena warehouse. Outside the warehouse staging area, rows of anti-aircraft guns and spotlights from the battleship are lined up, paint chipping and showing rust from years of wear and tear. The ship’s massive propeller, tucked away in a corner of the lot, will cost $100,000 alone to restore.

                            The volunteers toiling away restoring the ship’s artifacts show up at the warehouse every Wednesday and every other Saturday. While some have a mechanical background, they acknowledge that a lot of the restoration work is trial by fire.

                            “Most of the work we’re doing doesn’t take too many special skills,” said Calvin Bongers, 81, a Navy veteran.

                            “Or common sense,” joked Ward Slack, 66, also a Navy veteran. “I’ve never worked on a 3-inch (anti-aircraft) gun before.”



                            Vets pitch in
                            Many of the volunteers are marine buffs who are eager to see the battleship restored to pristine condition — as well as to tinker with outdated machinery and artillery foreign to most modern-day ship engineers. Some of the fruits of their labor will be on display at a Battleship Texas exhibit at the Lone Star Flight Museum in south Houston in the coming weeks.

                            “One of the great things about this work is we get to see parts of this ship that the public has never seen,” said Ron Lewis, 72, another Navy vet.

                            Where the battleship ultimately ends up after the dry dock repair is anyone’s guess. Bramlett, for now, is keeping its future berth close to the vest. In January 2020, the battleship foundation solicited proposals from various organizations and cities to be the ship’s new landlord.

                            Galveston was among the cities floated as a possibility. The foundation commissioned an economic study by Deloitte in 2016 that projected as many as 283,000 visitors and $3 million in annual revenue if the battleship moved to Galveston. Before closing to the public, the battleship typically attracted about 88,000 visitors annually and generated $1.3 million in revenue at its current location near LaPorte and in the shadow of the San Jacinto Monument.

                            “One of the conditions of (the bill passed by the Legislature) was that if we’re gonna fund these repairs, when you take (the battleship) out of San Jacinto, you cannot bring her back,” Bramlett said. “The state's been pretty much supplementing the cost of operations and maintenance of the ship against a revenue stream that never got close to what the need was. And so they realize we’ve got to have much more business and more bodies paying to come on board.”

                            ___________
                            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              My bet is she'll be in Galveston after drydocking!

                              https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...tleship-texas/

                              https://www.thepetitionsite.com/884/...-to-galveston/

                              http://ww2f.com/threads/the-uss-texa...-battle.73303/

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                "There will be expanded opportunities to drive leisure traffic to the park, host education programs, school field trips and large-scale corporate events," Woody said.

                                That above comment should always, always be taken with a grain of salt given my experience. The only part I know, first hand that will happen, is the school field trips which don't pay.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X