Ask An Expert- Naval Forces

[desertswo]

I didn't find the roll of a ship so bad for running.......it was the pitching. Bringing your feet down to have a steel deck come up to meet it early was just murder.

Yeah, that was problematic too.

[desertswo]

There goes a running fool. At least Forrest knew enough to stop when he settled down...

Yeah, and you know what I hate the most? My wife, the Uni grad, kept telling me that "walking is better than running . . . yadda, yadda, yadda." I hate it when she's right. :grump:

[JAD_333]

To be honest I don't think one can generate the desire. It is either in you or not in you.

Until my first visit to a post-WWII ship museum I was somewhat indifferent to the idea of saving these ships. I was more taken by ships from the sail era, which by the way continue to be repaired and maintained by craftsmen who pass their trade along generation to generation.

My attitude changed when I visited the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi a couple of years ago.



Although I enjoyed all the displays and read every plaque, what really fascinated me was the construction of the ship, even down to the way ladders were built. The massive steel parts and the huge engines held me in thrall. But I digress.

What I want to say is that visiting one of these ships can spark interest in supporting their preservation. So, the key to me is getting as many people as possible to visit and revisit, and finding ways to stay connected with them afterwards like the Iowa folks do so well.

[tbm3fan]

Yeah, and you know what I hate the most? My wife, the Uni grad, kept telling me that "walking is better than running . . . yadda, yadda, yadda." I hate it when she's right. :grump:

Yeah, you could have listened but a Saint usually has their head in the clouds most of the time.

Now you could have had a serious knee injury, like tearing the ACL in a knee in 1977, with no surgery possible to repair. That would have ended your running for the most part. You could then take up biking and have no further issues with your knee in case you didn't know. Hey, I'm trying not to usurp your wife's position...

Seriously, so when are you going to have replacements done?

[desertswo]

Yeah, you could have listened but a Saint usually has their head in the clouds most of the time.

Now you could have had a serious knee injury, like tearing the ACL in a knee in 1977, with no surgery possible to repair. That would have ended your running for the most part. You could then take up biking and have no further issues with your knee in case you didn't know. Hey, I'm trying not to usurp your wife's position...

Seriously, so when are you going to have replacements done?

Actually, when I lived in Newport, I rode my Trek 820 to work and back every day. Ten miles round trip . . . then I ran at lunch . . . but only after lifting weights first. I was all about the exercise 20 years ago!

[Tamara]

Actually, when I lived in Newport, I rode my Trek 820 to work and back every day. Ten miles round trip . . . then I ran at lunch . . . but only after lifting weights first. I was all about the exercise 20 years ago!

It's funny, isn't it, how we look back a decade or two and see we were exerholics......and wonder what changed, why can't we be like that again, it wasn't that long ago.

People I didn't know use to recognize me, call to me, because they saw me riding my bike around town, I rode everywhere.

[85 gt kid]

Desertswo- Yea it's definitely not fun at all lol but i've gotten used to it over the years. When I was a kid I was diagnosed and treated for Leukemia which I got through really well but ended up with a few down checks because of it (severe bone loss in my legs being one of them). Already had a bone chip fixed on my left ankle and now I had a cyst removed from my right ankle (something the Dr at Duke had never seen in that joint go figure) so my running days are gone but I can still walk and hopefully with a little less pain with that cyst gone ;).

What I want to say is that visiting one of these ships can spark interest in supporting their preservation. So, the key to me is getting as many people as possible to visit and revisit, and finding ways to stay connected with them afterwards like the Iowa folks do so well.

I think this is where the Boy Scout sleepovers would really help. Gets kids active at an early age to hopefully jump start a new found hobby in ship restoration . I know alot of museums do this so I wonder how that goes.

Also museums need to get EMAIL!!! Just about everywhere you go people want an email to contact you for sales and surveys so why shouldn't museums try this. Think of it this way, at the ticket area you ask for the persons email tell them it will put them in for a drawing (people love free crap) and then send them a small survey (how'd they like it, would they come back, volunteer etc). I do something like this at work occasionally and it works most of the time. Can't hurt right?

[Blademaster]

Actually, when I lived in Newport, I rode my Trek 820 to work and back every day. Ten miles round trip . . . then I ran at lunch . . . but only after lifting weights first. I was all about the exercise 20 years ago!

Try swimming now. It will be easier on your joints and use your muscles and burn your fat more efficiently than running.

[tbm3fan]

Finally, perhaps the answer is just to have a more powerful imagination. For all the material things in my life that I remember, from my first car in an Olds Cutlass to my father's Mooney 201 to the foul weather jacket that kept me so warm, I remember, I cherish, but I do so without the actual object. In some cases, I use symbolic magic such as a good luck charm or coffee mug associated with such. In others, just the memory.

You know that I still have my first car from high school which was my father's before. I also have my grandfather's last car before he died in 1975.

[Tamara]

You know that I still have my first car from high school which was my father's before. I also have my grandfather's last car before he died in 1975.

To each their own.

My car in high school was a Volarie, a lemon, and the family mananged to finally get rid of it but not before it caused them much anguish.

My car in college was an Isuzu Opel which blew the rear oil seal on my way to SWOS and the family had to drive out to me and replace with it with an Old station wagon.

That bought it (saved me) in a three car collision one night. My car after that was an Olds Cutlass Salon, loved it, but it bought it in 1993 when a woman, her visibility blocked by flying plywood, bounced to one side of the highway and then the other and into me. Again, I walked away from that one.

My car after that was a Chevy Corsica that served me for about 10 years but at the end, was essentially disintigrating. So I then got the Forester and have had it for the past 10 years (and the F250 for last 1.5).

To me at least, cars are tools, designed to get me and my cargo from place to place safely. We maintain them to keep them as long as we can but when the end comes, we sell them and get a new, at least to us, one.

[tbm3fan]

Well if I had owned a Volare, Isuzu Opel or Chevy Corsica then I would feel the same way you do. Yet since I am a certified gearhead I don't have cars like those.

[Tamara]

Well if I had owned a Volare, Isuzu Opel or Chevy Corsica then I would feel the same way you do. Yet since I am a certified gearhead I don't have cars like those.

The Corsica served me well over 10 years or so and it was what I could afford at the time, that was safe.

The Opel was inherited from an Uncle and it was a fun car for TAMU, especially out on the logging roads for Bonfire. Slung a lot of mud with it, learned how to drive in those conditions.

If wishes were horses.....................but this is life, one generally needs a car, and they buy what they can.

[Stitch]

I think this is where the Boy Scout sleepovers would really help. Gets kids active at an early age to hopefully jump start a new found hobby in ship restoration . I know alot of museums do this so I wonder how that goes.

My Boy Scout Troop does an overnighter almost every year on the USS Hornet, and most of the kids (especially the younger ones who haven't done it before) are really excited about actually getting to sleep on an aircraft carrier (and a haunted one at that!). Like you said, hopefully that will jump-start a new-found hobby in ship restoration.

[85 gt kid]

Got another for ya Desert sir!

Pulled from wiki (I know, I know):

"After more than three decades in mothballs, Jeremiah O'Brien's boilers were lit. The ship left the mothball fleet on 21 May 1980 bound for San Francisco Bay, drydocking, and thousands of hours of restoration work. She was the only Liberty Ship to leave the mothball fleet under her own power."

How did they manage this??? I know this is a simple design and I don't think it's a high psi plant (is it?) but wouldn't she have dried up seals and such that you wouldn't want with a steam plant? I think it's pretty cool that the JOB and John W Brown still operate their plants. Now let's see someone do this with an Iowa :fish:.

[desertswo]

Got another for ya Desert sir!

Pulled from wiki (I know, I know):

"After more than three decades in mothballs, Jeremiah O'Brien's boilers were lit. The ship left the mothball fleet on 21 May 1980 bound for San Francisco Bay, drydocking, and thousands of hours of restoration work. She was the only Liberty Ship to leave the mothball fleet under her own power."

How did they manage this??? I know this is a simple design and I don't think it's a high psi plant (is it?) but wouldn't she have dried up seals and such that you wouldn't want with a steam plant? I think it's pretty cool that the JOB and John W Brown still operate their plants. Now let's see someone do this with an Iowa :fish:.

Like anything else in life, "it depends." If the boilers (all two of them) were maintained on a proper layup for 30 years, then passed a satisfactory hydrostatic test (always an exciting time around any boiler) to 110% of the Babcock and Wilcox straight tube cross drum boilers that operate at 220 PSIG, nearly 1000 pounds less than the boilers I operated for most of my adult life, lighting them off would be no big deal. I will tell you one thing though, if you don't think there were leaks in all of the packing in the various valves throughout the plant, you have another thing coming. The only reason a ship like that didn't leak steam like a seive is because of the low pressure at which it operated and the large number of "hammer head" prime movers found in that plant. Just like the triple-expansion main engines. A design nearly 100 years old at the time. No turbines in that plant at all. Even the generators were single piston steam engines (see below). No turbines, no gland seals, no gland seals, no leaks. An average Joe could run that plant. Which was kind of the idea.



Edit: Just noticed something in that photo. Good thing I wasn't running their "light off exam." If I had been, there's be a down check until they changed out all of the lagging pads. They painted over them with that aluminum spray paint. That negates their ability to prevent heat transfer. If this ship was in the fleet, they'd have to change all of those that have been painted over, out for clean ones. Rusty's boys would have been busy.