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Battleship North Carolina BB-55

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  • #16
    85 - Just visited your photos - very nice. A LOT has been opened publically since my last visit 25 years ago!

    Hank

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    • #17
      Glad you liked em!
      RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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      • #18
        Originally posted by 85 gt kid View Post
        I wonder though with her hull in the shape that it's in i don't ghink she could make it TO the drydock. So maybe down the road she can get a proper drydock (thats if her under belly will hold up by then .
        Rusting away steel shell plating or even slowly grinding it away with abrasive mud will only flood the innerbottom tanks. If the Longitudinals, frames, floors and keels are left relatively intact, the ship can still be towed to a dry dock.

        At a lower waterline of course.

        PS: Please, do NOT ask me to come up with a plan for the docking blocks for the ship to sit on. That can be somebody else's nightmare.
        Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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        • #19
          Thank you as always Rusty. I knew she could take on water being a double bottom hull (or is it triple bottom like an Iowa?) But wasn't sure on the frame work. I know poor Texas and Olympia have this problem though, poor girls.
          RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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          • #20
            Last fall I attended the NRG (Nautical Research Guild) Nat'l Conference in Charleston, SC and one of the keynote speakers topic was of the structural integrity problems with TEXAS and how they are trying to rectify at least a portion of the engineering space within the ship. While the details are very hazy with me at this point, the gist of the talk was that without MAJOR funding to dry dock, rebuild, eventually put the ship in a permanent dry bed dock, TEXAS is just a disaster waiting to happen. My guess is that both she and OLYMPIA are just waiting for a major shock to their hull to wake up to a ship sunk at the pier (it happened in the '90s with the destroyer LAFFEY). This speaker's knowledge of the ship's condition was extraordinary and he left no doubt as to her immediate and long term needs. This project only covered one area of the engineering plant - not the ship overall.

            Hank

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            • #21
              Well hopefully Texas will get the money she's supposed but Olympia looks like she may be done
              RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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              • #22
                Looks like the BB55 folks still intend to build a cofferdam and repair the hull where she is, instead of having her towed to drydock like the original plan was.

                I am still not thrilled about that. Seems common sense to me that getting the entire ship high and dry, sandblasting the bottom and repairing it all at once is a much better way to do it.

                Certainly better than draining water from around her, tunneling under and repairing a section at a time.

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                • #23
                  Seems like they'd save money in the long run too. They need to get her out of the mud too!
                  RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Pacfanweb View Post
                    Looks like the BB55 folks still intend to build a cofferdam and repair the hull where she is, instead of having her towed to drydock like the original plan was.

                    I am still not thrilled about that. Seems common sense to me that getting the entire ship high and dry, sandblasting the bottom and repairing it all at once is a much better way to do it.

                    Certainly better than draining water from around her, tunneling under and repairing a section at a time.
                    If the Navy were smart, it would commit a few million dollars to send a pumping dredging ship up the river and spend 10 hours dredging the silt out from around and under North Carolina. "Around" would be no problem. The "under" part would be a bit more difficult and take some more time. Then, tow her down to Norfolk Naval Shipyard and start on the hull reconditioning she was supposed to receive in 2006.

                    North Carolina is still a national asset. The Navy needs to treat her as such and put some money toward her.

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                    • #25
                      The Navy does not put money towards museum ships and rightfully so it's the caretakers responsibility to maintain them. Plus how can the Navy justify spending that money when we can barely afford our carriers and the birds for them?
                      RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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                      • #26
                        Best way to get that BB out of the mud is during a storm surge during a hurricane (some pre dredging would be required). Now we just need some brave or impaired tug boat operators to try to pull it off. I guess the Wilmington bulk-head would get thrashed as the Showboat would most likely would swing around and give it a push.
                        Last edited by surfgun; 03 Jul 14,, 14:39.

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                        • #27
                          Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                          Best way to get that BB out of the mud is during a storm surge during a hurricane (some pre dredging would be required). Now we just need some brave or impaired tug boat operators to try to pull it off. I guess the Wilmington bulk-head would get thrashed as the Showboat would most likely would swing around and give it a push.
                          They ran her into a restaurant across the river when they were trying to squeeze her into her berth, memory serves. And that was in good weather.

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by 85 gt kid View Post
                            Well hopefully Texas will get the money she's supposed but Olympia looks like she may be done
                            I was just on Olympia last month...it was good knowing that I'd finally seen her, especially when I might not ever have the chance again.
                            “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.”

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                            • #29
                              Olympia is quite the time machine, isn't she?
                              Last edited by surfgun; 05 Jul 14,, 04:06.

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                              • #30
                                If memory serves in 1998 the uss Massachusetts was towed
                                From fall river to bostin for cleaning & welfare check
                                If the libs in mass can do it what is stopping NORTH
                                CAROLINA???

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