Posted on 01/23/2017 11:57:29 AM PST by nickcarraway
The most famous concrete ship on the West Coast suffered yet another casualty of the explosive surf over the weekend thanks to brutal storms and record waves.
The stern of the SS Palo Alto was eaten by the ocean on Saturday off Seacliff State Beach, located east of Santa Cruz in Capitola, on Park Avenue off of Highway 1. While the ship is still there, it's now impossible to walk from the end of the pier to the tip of the ship.
"It's an icon," Aptos resident Chris White told NBC Bay Area on Monday. He grabbed his camera and took a photo of the "amazing" ship on Saturday. He was one of many photographers, including Gabriel DeVault , documented the continual destruction of the historic ship. Devault's drone video (above) shows the ocean waves spewing through the holes in the boat. Nicknamed “The Cement Ship,” the SS Palo Alto has been deteriorating for a while and has been used for years as an artificial reef for marine life. It used to be a fishing pier until it was closed about a decade ago. And the hulking ship is a favorite for beach photo backdrops.
But waves in that area on Saturday reached records heights of 34 feet, according to the National Weather Service, and they were too much for the former oil tanker built in 1919. The ship is still there. But as the Twitter account for Santa Cruz County stated: The Cement Ship “took quite a beating.”
According to the website concreteships.org, the SS Palo is the most famous concrete ship on the West Coast, and was built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company in Oakland.
The Palo Alto remained docked in San Francisco Bay for over 10 years until it was bought by the Seacliff Amusement Company of Nevada and towed to Seacliff State Beach in Santa Cruz County, according to the website. The ship was grounded in the bay and connected to the shore by a long pier. At one time, it was a party boat complete with arcade, dining room, dance hall and even a swimming pool. The Seacliff Amusement Company went out of business during the Great Depression.
James Delgado, a maritime archaeologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's who also used to fish off the end of the ship and camp alongside it on the beach as a kid, knows the the SS Palo Alto well.
He described it as a "local product of the government's program" to built a fleet of merchant vessels with different materials to offset losses to the German U-boats during World War II. He said there was a deep need to build ships as fast as possible, and so, U.S. ship builders used any materials they could: steel, wood and concrete.
The SS Palo Alto, he said, was one of the "emergency fleet" ships during and after the end of the war. Delgado remembered the hull was cracked about 1950, and it continued to break up, most significantly starting in 2005.
As add as it sounds, a ship made of concrete, the Museum of Unnatural Mystery says that ship builders took the idea of a Norwegian inventor to make a ship of concrete as long as the weight of the water it displaces is more than its own weight.
When the concrete is formed into the shape of a ship, much of the interior space contains empty air, which is less dense than water, the museum website notes. Since the total ship is a combination of air and concrete, the density for the whole ship becomes less than the water, allowing it to float.
The California State Parks said on its website that the ship is unsafe and closed to the public indefinitely, as is the pier for fishing until repairs can be made.
Looks like a poop covered gull magnet......
“Abandon ship!”
I grew up going to generally cold Rio Del Mar beach in Aptos, Calif. and wondered about that ship out there. Didn’t know it was called the SS Palo Alto - I grew up in Palo Alto.
Just how did they expect that work?
Many years ago, when the first Whole Earth Catalog came out, there was an article about ferroconcrete ship hulls. I read a bit more, and soon found that experiments had been done to find the optimum ratio of steel to concrete for hull strength. It was 100% steel, zero concrete...
We have one here.
It was turned into a floating marine supplies store..............
Sort of like asking "what handles bending better, candy canes or caramel?"
Sort of like Bart Simpson’s secret to the best PB&J sandwich: no PB; all J.
So this thing hasn’t actually moved or even floated for over 70 years.
Jeannie was right not wanting Tony to get on a cement ship.
There’s the remains of a concrete ship just south of Bimini, Bahamas.
USS Sapona. Understand it was used in rum running days.
Snorkeled through it. Fascinating.
Can see parts of the engine and other debris. Schools of Yellow-tail snapper.
Oh, and barracuda as long as you.!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Sapona
Right !
The ferroconcrete was recommended for covering Buckey Fuller's Geodesic domes, on the outter shell.
I still have the Whole Earth Catalogue, vol 1, number 1.
I even made a geodesic dome skeleton out of tongue depressors about 12 -14 inches high, and it was able to support my weight (then) of 185 pounds.
I was looking into the dome as for low-income housing; but found that without curved furniture, there was too much wasted space; ideal for air circulation (wood stove), though !
Ferro cement boats have worked very well for their intended design, cheap and fast to build, they helped carry a lot of supplies for our military. Started in WW1 and continued in WW2. The fact that they are still around show just how durable they can be.
Now, if we were to use more modern tech, say fiber glass rods instead of steel, flexible mesh over the rods, fiber reinforced flexible concrete, coated with Grancrete or epoxy and then painted, you would a very sturdy ship that was a lot less expensive than a steel one. And while I have not run the math, with light weight concrete, you could be lighter than steel.
Might even be possible to build a boat with AAC.
Used to fish off that thing back in the day.
I’ve come to believe that calling a ship unsinkable or indestructible, etc, is tantamount to daring God to prove you wrong.
He has a tendency to take up the offer.
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