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Stuck in mud, USS Intrepid move is scrapped
MSNBC ^

Posted on 11/06/2006 8:57:44 AM PST by SmoothTalker

"NEW YORK - The legendary aircraft carrier USS Intrepid got stuck in the deep Hudson River mud Monday as powerful tugboats fought to pull it free to tow the floating museum downriver for a $60 million overhaul."

" After 24 years at the same pier on Manhattan’s West Side, the Intrepid began inching backward out of its berth, but the tugs moved it only a few feet before its giant propellers jammed in the thick accumulation of mud. The decommissioned war ship no longer has engines of its own."

"The Intrepid, launched in 1943, is one of four Essex-class carriers still afloat six decades after spearheading the naval defeat of Japan in the Pacific. It survived five kamikaze suicide attacks and lost 270 crewmen in battle.

Doomed to the scrap heap, it was purchased in 1981 by real estate developer Zachary Fisher, who realized his dream of turning the ship into the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum a year later.

It became one of New York’s major tourist attractions, drawing some 700,000 visitors a year. It also supports a Fallen Heroes Fund that has provided $14 million to aid families of service members killed and wounded in the line of duty and built a $35 million advanced training facility for disabled veterans."

(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ussintrepid
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To: Tallguy; Doohickey

Odd. Good question, and I don't know.

Usually, planes are flown off before even routine (short) in-port periods.

Could be emergency upkeep, so they keep everything on board, but that would imply fuel and explosives too! (NOT something anybody in the yard wants in a work environment!)

The planes can get lifted off by crane once the carrier docks - sometimes to adjacent barges even, but from a drydock area that creates a hassle moving them through the drydock craneways and shipyard railroad tracks: bumpy and rough job.

Besides, nobody wants to waste a crane moving airplanes when scaffolding and piping and service lines are getting taken care of.


41 posted on 11/06/2006 9:33:39 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but Hillary's ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: razorback-bert

In the 80's, I was at a convention and we held our reception there one evening...great experience running around on that piece of history.


42 posted on 11/06/2006 9:34:02 AM PST by ErnBatavia (recent nightmare: Googled up "Helen Thomas nude"....)
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To: DigitalVideoDude
“The Intrepid stands for everything we believe in ... our freedom and our values,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said...

I wish California politicians would say the same thing about the USS Iowa. They even point to the costs of maintaining the USS Hornet at Alameda as an excuse to refuse the Iowa.

-PJ

43 posted on 11/06/2006 9:34:33 AM PST by Political Junkie Too (It's still not safe to vote Democrat.)
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To: DigitalVideoDude

This pig doesn't deserve to mention the carrier's name.


44 posted on 11/06/2006 9:37:34 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: jpsb; Charles Martel; Robert A. Cook, PE
"Yup or damming the river."

Oh, sure! Blame the river.

45 posted on 11/06/2006 9:39:17 AM PST by NicknamedBob (If the Supreme Court has "Judges for Life," why is there any question about Roe vs Wade?)
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To: highball

Not from a technical perspective, but from an AP Style Guide approach. Any journalist on the military beat worth his/her salt (Argh, argh, argh) know it.


46 posted on 11/06/2006 9:40:23 AM PST by PurpleMan
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To: finnman69
It was amazing to see the tugs with engines on full churning up tons of dark smelly silt laden water, but the ship was not going anywhere.

Those "little" tugboats are amazing . . . from looking at them, one doesn't realize that they are basically plate-metal surrounding one big engine, or engines. When you see one working at capacity (or close), it's quite impressive.

47 posted on 11/06/2006 9:43:24 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE
There has been no doubt that the Intrepid has been lying on the bottom. Removing the screws will allow it to slide through the mud easier.

Intrepid mission scrubbed in New York City after ship gets stuck in the Hudson River mud

...Snip...

Monday's departure was timed to take advantage of the yearly high tide so the tugs could pull the 27,000-ton ship out of the slip where it has rested in up to 17 feet of mud. Removal of 600 tons of water from the Intrepid's ballast tanks gave the ship added buoyancy, and dredges removed 15,000 cubic yards of mud to create a channel from dockside to deeper water.


48 posted on 11/06/2006 9:45:14 AM PST by Yo-Yo (USAF, TAC, 12th AF, 366 TFW, 366 MG, 366 CRS, Mtn Home AFB, 1978-81)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE; All

For the all time Granddaddy of groundings, it has to be the USS Missouri in 1950 when she got stuck in the mud near Norfolk VA. I read a book about it, and her brand spanking new Captain was on the bridge, taking her out of Norfolk.

They were doing 15 knots in that area in a 55,000 ton battleship, way faster than they should have been going, but the Captain apparently wanted to impress the crew.

As they approached Thimble Shoals, the Captain put her on a heading to take her across Thimble Shoals to the port, instead of to the starboard side of the navigation buoy.

The Coxswain, a low rated enlisted man who had been through the area dozens of times before, knew that was wrong, and informed the Captain they should pass to the starboard side, which the Captain ignored. He tried to tell him again, no result. On the third try, the Captain bit his head off in an exceptionally nasty way. When asked later why he did not persist in trying to inform the Captain, he said, "I tried three times and got chewed out for it. I bit my tongue from then on."

Down below in the map room, the Navigation Officer and an associate saw the marker buoy go by their porthole on the starboard side of the ship, and did a collective "Huh?" They furiously attacked the maps to be sure, then tried to call the bridge, to no avail. At this point, the condenser temperature began to rise as mud was sucked into the inlets, and sailors on the fantail saw mud being kicked up. But the ship did not slow down for a while, since the mud was so slick and the slope so shallow, that when the ship did become stuck, it happened so gradually that most of the crew had no idea.

Worse yet, it happened at an unusually high tide...so the ship rode seven feet out of the water within view of a major highway. She had gone nearly a half mile inland on the shoal.

It took two weeks to pull her off. They had to unload all fuel, water, supplies and munitions, and it took 12 tugboats, four on each side rocking her back and forth, and 4 astern pulling. They also had Navy divers over the sides with waterhoses underwater spraying the sides of the hull to break the grip of the mud.


49 posted on 11/06/2006 9:46:06 AM PST by rlmorel (The US Media...Where you get Million Dollar Words From people with a Ten Cent Fart for a brain.)
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To: SmoothTalker

Exactly the kind of engineering problem that can be solved by duct tape, nylon tarpaulins, an old Kirby and a few million ping pong balls.


50 posted on 11/06/2006 9:47:28 AM PST by bvw
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To: bvw

hehe, spoken like a true geek engineer...:)


51 posted on 11/06/2006 9:49:09 AM PST by rlmorel (The US Media...Where you get Million Dollar Words From people with a Ten Cent Fart for a brain.)
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To: 1rudeboy

I was on the pier next to the stern (bow was facing the river) and when the stern tug was pushing full on (guessing it was trying to loosen up the ship) it created an incredible vortex of water between the Intrepid and the pier to the south. This was one of the smaller tugs.


52 posted on 11/06/2006 9:50:09 AM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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To: SmoothTalker; NavySon
My nephew and I were there about a month ago,just before it was scheduled to close.Very impressive,indeed.

While on board,I approached an elderly man in a wheelchair who was sporting a Marine Corps cap and asked him if he had been assigned to the Intrepid.He told me he hadn't but that he had been at Bougainville.

It was a memorable day for me and,I suspect,for my nephew,whose Dad had served in the Navy during the Vietnam era.

53 posted on 11/06/2006 9:50:34 AM PST by Gay State Conservative ("An empty limousine pulled up and Hillary Clinton got out")
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

I knew something was wrong. I watched the tug near me cycle a couple times, some times pushing on the stern, sometimes pulling on the line, all the two massive bow tugs were pulling on the bow.


54 posted on 11/06/2006 9:53:17 AM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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To: justshutupandtakeit
How about removing the propellers?

They tried, but they're held on by right wing nuts.

55 posted on 11/06/2006 9:54:05 AM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: rlmorel

Any word on what happened to the Captain and the other senior officers?


56 posted on 11/06/2006 9:54:49 AM PST by Gay State Conservative ("An empty limousine pulled up and Hillary Clinton got out")
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To: finnman69

One has to wonder about the engineers who were set to work on that.


57 posted on 11/06/2006 9:54:58 AM PST by GretchenM (What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Please meet my friend, Jesus)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

From the captions on the other photos in the gallery, the Hancock was in drydock for repairs to the screws. It's possible she couldn't maintain sufficient speed to launch her aircraft.


58 posted on 11/06/2006 9:55:17 AM PST by MediaMole (9/11 - We have already forgotten.)
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To: reagan_fanatic

It would fail upon filing an environmental impact statement.


59 posted on 11/06/2006 9:55:33 AM PST by sine_nomine (Vote for the Democrats? - the party of Studds, Frank, Webb, Clinton? - the new family values party?)
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To: All

BTW FYI

The Intrepid is being moved primarily so the pier can be repaired and modernized. While in drydock, they will scrap and paint the hull as a bonus.


60 posted on 11/06/2006 9:55:35 AM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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