Posted on 09/11/2022 6:42:39 PM PDT by texas booster
Hey y'all, we're back with our first video walking around the dock floor. Here Travis is going to explain some of the work that's been going on as well as what's to come. Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
One thing we would like to say is that due the huge amount of support y'all have been showing us, we are completely inundated with orders from our shop! We are shipping them out as fast as we can but please note that orders from our store will take a moment to get to you! Thank you so much for y'all's support, we cannot thank y'all enough!
A very good look at the Texas in dry dock. In amazing shape to start the rebuilding journey.
A ping out to the Texas Ping list, founded by Windflier.
A recent video update on the Battleship Texas, showing the plating below the waterline. This YT video is not too long.
Another special Texas winter edition for your perusal.
As always, please FReepmail me if you want on or off the Texas Ping list.
Blessings, and stay cool!
That looks way better than I thought it would. They don’t make them like that anymore.
Really good stuff. I appreciate your post.
Nice.
Thanks for the ping!
That was a great video, please ping to any more that you are made aware of time goes on...
It is truly fascinating to see under the waterline... all in all, she is in great shape for a 110 year old!
Oy, vat a big boat dat is!
Later. Thanks.
Thank you. One of my earliest memories is of looking at the steam pistons inside the Battleship texas engineroom. Thinking “I could stand in that! And it goes up and down drives that! (Looking back at the propeller shaft.)
http://battleshiptexas.info/images/Systems/Steering/SteeringRm.html
Then I realized that this “modern” battleship still had Nelson-era steering wheels and ropes for emergency steering! And with an analog computer up forward that used dials for the latitude, the speed and the temperature and the course ... Just so it could shoot straight for miles and miles.
I was hooked forever!
Really disappointed in the people that originally laid that ship up. Those interior frame collapses did not have to happen. Brackish water ballast? There was cheap technology in those days to prevent that.
I was chief mate on a ship larger than that which was the first of a show case to the coast guard where we reduced annual dry docking to every other year with a “wet dock” in between. My team inspected every weld in the ballast tanks and the cleaned bunker tanks. Did it in a couple days. I still have my Atta Boy certificate.
The basis for the every other year was based on high tech coatings and inspections, inboard and outboard with divers. That was a working ship where corrosion would have been more problematic than a static ship using older but effective technology.
It’s the internal valves and pipes that are the real problem.
Those torpedo blisters have been a constant source of problems. They are not original to the ship but were added later, around 1925. That work was most likely done by the lowest bidder, & she’s been through a lot since then. The ship was destined to be used for target practice until the State of Texas rescued her from the mothball fleet.
That would be the Battleship Texas Commission (not to be confused with the modern Battleship Texas Foundation) which was responsible for the ship from 1947-1983. The Commission is responsible for most of the problems that the Texas is currently experiencing, due to many, many acts of incompetence and stupidity. Including the idiot replacement of the original decking with cheap concrete. The Commission was completely (and horrifyingly) incompetent and insufficient to the task laid before it.
It probably would not be surprising to anyone here that the Commission was a sinecure post for friends of the Democrat governors of Texas at the time...
Lots more here:
Texas was not a ‘modern’ battleship after the interwar period, though she was modern*ized*. She’s a dreadnought type which was technically obsolete after the end of WW1.
YES! God Bless Texas.
If anyone who lives near Houston wants to go see it, the ship is right across the Galveston channel from Pier 21. I went down there yesterday and you can see it clearly. It is in drydock on Pelican Island.
Good point.
The Texas may look good on the outside, but she’s rotten on the inside from the brackish ballasting she was subjected to. I don’t know how they can expect to fix the frame damage...a condition they inflicted on her thru stupidity.
Different set of people was responsible for the brackish water stupidity - Democrat appointees of the then Democrat governor.
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