This has been going on for decades and the conservancy has been unable to raise enough funds just to pay the dock rent, let alone any preservation or restoration of the vessel.
It is time to turn her into an artificial reef.
$5000,000 fleecing of hard-working taxpayers is URGENT, URGENT, URGENT, EMERGENCY.
Best to just remember the glory days, and take the SS Norma Desmond to the scrappers.
The re-floating process marks the next step in the ship's $75 million restoration.
PREVIOUS REPORT: Battleship Texas enters $15M restoration phase as it gets closer to calling Galveston, 'home'
Over the next 18 to 24 months, crews will be replacing the deck superstructure and interiors.
Battleship Texas had been drydocked at Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Rig Repair's shipyard for $21 million worth of extensive repairs since August 2022. During that time, crews replaced over 700 tons of steel, painted the hull, and performed quality control checks, according to the Battleship Texas Foundation.
Before it was moved to Galveston for repairs, the iconic 122-year-old Dreadnought -- which served in both WWI and WWII -- called the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site home for over 70 years.
The ship is expected to reopen in a new home sometime next year.
SEE ALSO:
Battleship Texas docks in Galveston after daylong, historic tow
The simple fact is that SS UNITED STATES is now a shell of her once proud self.
Had she been preserved like RMS QUEEN MARY was, it would be different. But there is nothing left of the ship’s interior fittings.
Best result, would be to turn her into a reef like USS ORISKANY.
Here’s another piece of history that has been carefully restored and become a living part of San Francisco. I went on a cruise around San Francisco Bay for a whole day on the ship. Maybe it made a difference to me because my dad was a Merchant Marine during World War II.
https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/pages/history-of-the-obrien
Surely they can think of a way to bring tourists to this ship
“The cheapest option would be to move the ship closeby to its present berth.”
Well DUH! If they move it to its present berth that is definitely “close by”, since they wouldn’t be moving it at all. /s
Urinalists!
Sink her next to the Titanic.
Time to sink her. Her spirit will live on underneath.