Anyone in the market for a used US Navy Cruiser?

[Elmo T]

The USS Olympia maybe headed for scrap. A local icon in Philly and a storied past.

Delivered the WW1 unknown soldier home from France in 1921. Also, Commodore George Dewey gave the command: "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley..." during the Battle of Manila Bay.

Here is hoping someone steps up to save her.

Olympia, 2-war naval veteran, battles for survival (http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/206/2010/september/06/olympia-2-war-naval-veteran-battles-for-survival.html)

[cameraman]

65 years in the water? It is a miracle it is still floating.

[oddlycalm]

We have local groups that have managed to save some historic steam locomotives at considerable expense and a lot of hard work but a cruiser that went into service in 1892 would be a massive project. I'd be surprised if the $10 million number wasn't on low side.: ( No question of the significance though.

oc

[cameraman]

It would make for a good stimulus spending package. :rolleyes: The dredges would be local, the dry dock would be local and the shipyard workers would be local. Yeah, yeah but at some level preserving history need to be part of the public sector as there is no profit opportunity attached to a large accumulation of iron oxides bound together by paint.

[Gnam]

There is a group trying to bring the USS Olympia to the San Francisco Bay Area. They would dock it near Vallejo, CA at the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Getting the ship from Philly to SF in one piece would be a quite a job.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/01/18/state/n081701S57.DTL&tsp=1

Another group has also been trying to bring the mothballed battleship USS Iowa to Vallejo as a floating museum.

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_17094929

It's all pretty iffy, but you might have the first battleship moored next to the last.

[Methanolandbrats]

Excellent candidate to turn into an artificial reef.

[Napoleon]

How about this crazy idea. To help raise money for the country we can sell it to some ally of ours, like, say Argentina, who can then rename it after a famous Argentine, perhaps even after a founding father of that country, like General Belgrano.

I am sure the ship will then live out the rest of its years in peace.

[Andrew Longman]

Wow, that really stinks. It is a great ship to tour if you get to Philly. Massive steam engine goes up the middle of the ship. Massive coal bunkers, all shoveled by hand IIRC.

I definitely remembered thinking that was not a ship or time in naval history I'd want to serve. Pretty rough, hot, dirty work. Oh yeah. And you might get shot at too.

I'm really surprised that this isn't being better supported. It is an icon of the waterfront. Now the USS New Jersey across the river, I could see that having trouble because it is in NJ. And in Camden no less. Great thing to tour as well BTW but Jersey pretty much screws up anything to do with historical tourism.

[racermike]

There is a group trying to bring the USS Olympia to the San Francisco Bay Area. They would dock it near Vallejo, CA at the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Getting the ship from Philly to SF in one piece would be a quite a job.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/01/18/state/n081701S57.DTL&tsp=1

Another group has also been trying to bring the mothballed battleship USS Iowa to Vallejo as a floating museum.

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_17094929

It's all pretty iffy, but you might have the first battleship moored next to the last.

My dad owns waterfront space, where he is trying to work out deal with the USS Ranger Foundation, to have this aircraft carrier docked near downtown Portland.

http://www.ussranger.org/

[cameraman]

I saw an piece on the soon-to-be decommissioning of the USS Enterprise. Seems there won't be much left to make a museum out of... The reactor decommissioning includes cutting apart everything lower than two decks below the flight deck. That's going to be one huge pile of radioactive scrap.

[Steve99]

^^^
Is all that going to be radioactive scrap, or was the ship built around the reactor, so they have to dismantle the ship to get the reactor out? Sounds like an interesting story.

[cameraman]

A mixture of both. The Enterprise was built around eight reactors. On a related note here is a photo of the reactor hull segments of the decommissioned US Navy submarine fleet.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii35/Cynops/subs.gif

That is up at the Hanford site in Washington. The numbers and size are correct so I'm pretty sure this is the trench where all US nuclear submarines end up.

[Methanolandbrats]

I saw an piece on the soon-to-be decommissioning of the USS Enterprise. Seems there won't be much left to make a museum out of... The reactor decommissioning includes cutting apart everything lower than two decks below the flight deck. That's going to be one huge pile of radioactive scrap.

Just sink it and breed new types of colorful fish :gomer:---->gomer solution.

[Anteater]

I hope that the USS Olympia can be saved; I saw this magnificent ship moored at the dock in '02, and regret not having time for a tour.

[Methanolandbrats]

How does the cost of maintaining a docked ship as a museum compare to maintaining a huge old building? I'm guessing it's really, really expensive.

[cameraman]

It is a bit dated but here is a good read about the costs of historic naval ships.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/museum1.htm

[sadams]

There's talk in my state about getting the USS Kennedy because it's going to be tha last aircraft carrier that will be able to be displayed. All later carriers were nuke powered and the decommisioning results in not much left to display.

[opinionated ow]

There's talk in my state about getting the USS Kennedy because it's going to be tha last aircraft carrier that will be able to be displayed. All later carriers were nuke powered and the decommisioning results in not much left to display.

IIRC that was the last one that was able to be brought into Australian EEZ (a nice 8 million square kilometre zone) because Australian law prohibits nuclear powered vehicles.

[Andrew Longman]

It is a bit dated but here is a good read about the costs of historic naval ships.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/museum1.htm

If anyone gets to NYC the USS Intrepid is well worth your time.

Had a heck of time with a recent restoration though. http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/Restoration_USS_Intrepid.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/nyregion/06intrepidcnd.html

[cameraman]

I don't remember the channel but there was an entire show on getting the Intrepid out of the mud.