Ex-Navy Surveillance Ship Getting New Life in Port Security

NY Times ^ | September 27, 2004 | PATRICK HEALY

[neverdem]

During its years in the Navy, the surveillance ship Stalwart patrolled the Atlantic, searching the silent waters for signs of Russian submarines. Its end came not from enemy fire, but old age and budget cuts, according to Navy documents. In all, it was a decent but unremarkable military career.

But in a berth beneath the Throgs Neck Bridge, the empty, rust-scabbed ship has found its second life as a floating classroom and cargo-security laboratory. It is now being converted into the new headquarters of the New York State Strategic Center for Port and Maritime Security.

Besides serving as office space for the port security center, the ship will be used to test new cargo-security sensors and devices developed by scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. It will run practice security drills, assist the Coast Guard and sail on training missions to New Jersey ports.

Miriam Rafailovich, a researcher at SUNY Stony Brook who studies polymers, said scientists are trying to develop tiny sensors that will track cargo containers and monitor any tampering with them. She said the sensors need to be cheap, small and able to communicate to people who speak different languages.

Dr. Rafailovich said researchers would use the ship as a soundstage to develop sensors, scanners and other devices.

"It's one thing to write about it, but you're really not good at it unless you've sat in a boat that actually goes into the port itself," Dr. Rafailovich said. "The best scientists are the ones who have actually experienced it."

The port security center is run by the Brookhaven laboratory, SUNY Stony Brook and SUNY Maritime, whose campus is on an old military fort in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge.

The center's leaders hope to finish the $300,000 job of cleaning and renovating the ship by the spring, said Vice Adm. John R. Ryan, the president of SUNY Maritime. "We're going to bring it back to life," he said.

Until then, the Stalwart sits anchored under the bridge, its lines flapping listlessly in the breeze. It is a 260-foot, golf-ball-white ship that still bears its Navy stripes and a sign warning, "US GOVT VESSEL KEEP OUT."

During the Cold War, ships like it prowled the Caribbean, North Atlantic and North Pacific with long surveillance cables dipped into the water like fishing lines. They spent weeks and months at sea listening for signs of Soviet submarines.

"They're not fast," Admiral Ryan said. "These vessels would go out and loiter in high-target areas for three months at a time. They might be off Iceland, they might be off the Aleutians. Tom Clancy wrote about all this stuff."

But the ship grew obsolete as it aged, and larger, wider surveillance ships were built.

"She was laid up for quite a while," said Capt. Richard Smith of SUNY Maritime. "They drained everything, they disconnected everything. She was going to be sent down and sank or used for target practice."

After the ship was decommissioned in January 2003, the United States Maritime Administration gave it to SUNY Maritime, with the promise of $300,000 in federal funds for repairs and upgrades. Captain Smith said it would cost about $700,000 to get the ship up to par.

In May, it sailed from Philadelphia to the SUNY Maritime campus in the Bronx, and the college's employees are now looking for old beds, desks and chairs to furnish the empty ship.

"It's sort of like a blank slate," said Tom Graham, the director of the port security center. "They're going to reconfigure the whole thing."

Admiral Ryan said the college would pay some of the cost for fuel and maintenance, with the Coast Guard, Maritime Administration and other agencies providing additional money. Much of the research for the devices to be tested on the ship will occur in labs across Long Island and the city, officials said.

[neverdem]

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
The Stalwart, a former Navy surveillance ship, is docked below the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx.

[neverdem]

Let me know if you want on or off my New York ping list.

[Shellback Chuck]

Sad news, I sailed aboard the USNS Capable and the USNS Relentless. Two other ships of the same class in the Navy's SURTASS program. They've been outclassed by the SWATH class ships and the Low Frequency Active system. To those that don't know, the SURTASS ships served as a type of "mobile SOSUS" system, but they turned out to be far more capable.
The SOSUS line was compromised by the traitor John Walker back in the 80's.

[Shellback Chuck]

I'm glad they found a new use for her though. Better than the scrapheap.