Posted on 06/12/2012 3:51:05 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Crews have been working 24-hour days to keep up with extraordinary amounts of water leaking on board Battleship Texas.
The historic ship, which just turned 100 years old in May, is only one of six remaining that served in both World War I and World War II.
The ship manager says crews noticed the unusual amount of water coming on board sometime on Saturday. Since then, workers have been at it day and night just trying to keep up.
A number of pumps have been brought to the site as the water is being directed back out into the channel. Staffers with Texas Parks and Wildlife, volunteers, a separate contractor and a salvage diving company have teamed up to take on this task.
There’s a big concern about oil getting into the channel. That’s why there is a boom placed near the ship, essentially collecting any excess oil that might leak out.
Workers are also trying to scoop the oil out of the lower portions of the ship. It is then being filtered out through pumps.
The goal is to have this fixed by Wednesday and to make sure no other leaks pop up.
“We’re dealing with a 100-year-old vessel…so you’re dealing with something that wasn’t designed to last this long. We think we can probably manage a patch, a repair on it, but this is always a concern that this could sprout up again in a different place,” said Andy Smith, the Ship Manager of Battleship Texas.
The ship manager said the lower portions of the ship have been closed to the public. People have still been allowed on board the second deck and above.
“We got a lot of hoses working and pumps working, and we don’t want to create a situation where someone might slip on some water,” explained Smith.
Workers still have not been able to pinpoint exactly where the leak is located. They are still working day and night to deal with the water that is coming on board.
For years, there’s been a plan in the works to dry dock the ship for a multi-million-dollar renovation. The ship manager said coming up with that amount of money has proved challenging, and they’re in desperate need of donors to step in and help out.
Except that there weren't many ship to ship encounters among battleships in WWII. Aircraft carriers made it possible to attack battleships from hundreds of miles while putting orders of magnitude fewer lives at risk. The Japanese battleship Yamato had 18" guns that could out range the Iowa class, but that was irrelevant. It was sunk by carrier based naval planes. The main use for battleships in WWII was shore bombardment for amphibious operations. The triple expansion steam engines on the Texas were obsolete even when it was built, and made it too slow to keep up with carriers. Once WWII was over, there really wasn't any need to keep such an obsolete ship.
And the Bismark was fatally wounded by carrier based RAF Swordfish biplanes, and the carriers were well out of range of Bismark's guns.
I simply pointed out one flaw. I'd rather have a guided missle frigate, or a UCAV tender, phasers...
And a trillion $$$ of more debt per yer.
What a mess that one wonders if it can be cleaned up.
I own the movie! She was a terror. An air-launched torpedo strike affected her steering, so the story goes. She was overwhelmed by gunfire from KGV (14" guns) and from Hood's sister ship Rodney (15" guns). After being scuttled by her crew she was finished off with three torps from the cruiser Dorsetshire.
My bet is a sea-chest leak. After so long without regular dry-docking, her seawater piping is likely ridden with pinhole leaks.
The text I have shows the Texas limping along at 21kts. (Not the 33kts of the Iowa class). Carriers then might make 20knots. What gives?
The old Interwar Yorktown-class carriers had a top speed of 32 knots. The Postwar Midway-class had a top speed of 33 knots. Even the first proper carrier the US had, the Lexington, made 33 knots.
What a beautiful picture, THANKS!
Texas, her sister New York and the slightly older Arkansas were slated to be decommissioned prior to WWII, with the Washington and South Dakota ships being built. They were retained as convoy escorts and shore bombardment platforms, and were not even considered to be part of the US fleet’s battle line.
The slightly newer Oklahoma wasn’t rebuilt after turning turtle at Pearl Harbor specifically because her tripple expansion engines severely limited her operational capability. The three old “coal burners” were retained because they were still operational and somewhat useful.
Howd’dja like ta see THAT comin’ at’cha if you wuz a gnatzie swabbie?
Yeah, I believe there’s a USS submarine at the Texas site as well. Lot easier to hoist a submarine boat out of the water than it is to do with a battlewagon. Lot of heartbreak after WWII when the military had to surplus tens of thousands of historic vessels because in the end, there’s no way to pay for them. Course those were the days you could get a tank shipped to you in a kit. Saw it in the back of a magazine.
It’s a good read!
Does anyone know of a website where donations could be sent?
“What I found interesting when I toured the Texas a few years ago was that she had triple expansion steam reciprocating engines rather than steam turbines even thought the Dreadnought had steam turbines in 1906. This explains why the Texas was decommissioned immediately after WWII ended.”
Ah . . . no. *All* surviving US Navy first- and second-generation battleships were decommissioned immediately after World War II regardless of whether they had recipricating engines or turbines. Wyoming and Arkansas both had turbines and were deleted from the Navy list earlier than Texas. (In fact Wyoming had been converted to a gunnery training ship prior to WWII.) The Florida class — older than Texas, but also powered by steam turbines — had been discarded prior to WWII. Utah was being used as a target ship at the start of WWII, and was sunk by the Japanese who probably though it was an aircraft carrier. (Its decks were covered by timbers).
The surviving Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico class battleships (with the exception of Mississippi — which was used as gunnery test ship, replacing Wyoming) were all scrapped or expended as atom bomb test targets in the same year that Texas was stricken from the Navy. All of these had turbines and were newer than Texas. The rest of the battleships built in the late teens and 1920s had all been decommissioned by 1947 (although most were not scrapped for another decade).
There was no need for these ships regardless of their propulsion system. Something similar happened after WWI when virtually all of the pre-dreadnought battleships the USN had were scrapped in the decade after the end of WWI. Fortunately Texas had more interest in the ship named after it than did states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. (Those would have been cool ships to preserve.)
While the predreadnoughts were definitely obsolescent, they were scrapped under the terms of the first post WWI naval treaty.
After WWII, only the USS Missouri was retained in active service, mostly because she was Trumans favorite ship but also because the RN an FN were keeping their last battleships in service for ceremonial and sentimental reasons (HMS Vanguard was heavily modified to operate as a royal yacht).
In fact, when the Missouri was decommissioned after Korea and relegated to the relative backwater of Puget Sound, Truman took it as a personal affront by Eisenhower himself.
Great picture. Wonder how many know what that monument is?
The Saratoga (CV-3) was capable of 33 knots. Only the Iowa Class of battleships were capable of keeping up with the carrier fleet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Saratoga_(CV-3)
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