USS Intrepid gets stuck in mud!

[SparrowHawk62]

USS Intrepid gets stuck in mud, delaying move
No word yet on new attempt to relocate historic aircraft carrier for cleaning

? USS Intrepid stuck in mud
Nov. 6: The USS Intrepid was to begin its journey on Monday to a New Jersey shipyard to get a facelift. But just after tugboats started tugging, the ship got stuck in 10 feet of mud, scrubbing the trip for now.
NBC News Channel

Updated: 3:42 p.m. ET Nov 6, 2006
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.

The mission was scrubbed for the day at around 10:30 a.m. as the tide went down, said Dan Bender, a Coast Guard spokesman. There was no immediate word when the effort would resume.

After 24 years at the same pier on Manhattan?s West Side, the World War II warship began inching backward out of its berth, but moved only about 15 feet before its giant propellers jammed in the thick mud. The decommissioned war ship no longer has engines of its own.

?We knew it was not going to come out like a cruise ship,? said Matt Woods, the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum?s vice president for operations.

Six tugboats had strained to move the giant ship.

?Very disappointing?
?We were able to move her 15 feet, and then she came to a halt. We tried to add more power with another tugboat but we couldn?t wiggle her free,? said Jeffrey McAllister, the chief pilot of the tugboat operation.

?We were missing our open window. We had to give up because the tides were going down,? he added. ?She was moving, we were hopeful, she started to creep along but then she stopped.?

?It was very disappointing,? McAllister said.

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.

Two-year job
The carrier?s $60 million refurbishment, which is expected to take up to 2 years, will include opening up more interior spaces to the public, upgrading its exhibits and a bow-to-stern paint job in naval haze-gray.

The pier will also be completely rebuilt in the Intrepid?s absence. The city is contributing $17 million, the state $5 million, the federal government $36 million, plus $2 million in private funds.

Just before the ceremony, officials expressed optimism about being able to move the aircraft carrier.

?The people doing this have moved a thousand ships bigger than the Intrepid,? Intrepid president Bill White said earlier. ?A ship that survived five kamikaze attacks is going to make it five miles down river.?

Earlier, Hector Giannesca recalled one of those attacks as he stood on the flight deck waiting for the start of ceremonies.

?On March 25, 1944, I was standing on this deck almost in the exact spot as today when a kamikaze crashed into the deck and killed 79 of my shipmates. I was spared,? he said.

?Everything we believe in?
Elected officials, veterans who served on the Intrepid and others had waited on the flight deck for the beginning of the journey five miles down the river to a dry dock in Bayonne, N.J. Helicopters flew overhead; New York Police Department blue-and-white power boats, Fire Department boats and a Coast Guard cutter were on hand to accompany the aircraft carrier.

?The Intrepid stands for everything we believe in ... our freedom and our values,? Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the sendoff ceremony before the tugs began their work.

Two former mayors, Edward Koch and David Dinkins, cast off the final mooring lines at the order of 80-year-old retired Rear Adm. J. Lloyd ?Doc? Abbot Jr., who served two years as Intrepid?s skipper in 1960-62 and has been named honorary commander for the day.

?It was the best job I ever had,? Abbot said, standing once again on the ship?s deck. ?Intrepid had a soul of her own. How can a hunk of iron have a soul, you may ask. But I loved her. She kept me safe and at times I kept her safe.?

Exhibits to be relocated
The British Airways Concorde supersonic jetliner that has been part of the Intrepid museum exhibit since 2004 will be temporarily relocated outside a new recreational center at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. The plane, known as Alpha Delta, still holds transatlantic speed records for commercial aircraft.

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.

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.

The Intrepid serves as a living memorial to the arms services, a tourist attraction that draws hundreds of thousands people a year and, if the need arises, will become as an emergency operation center for city and federal authorities. The FBI used it as an operation center after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

? 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[Robert Ryan]

Still serving the USS Intrepid.

[locksly]

God protect this ship, this field of dreams
Guard our airfield, upon the Sea
She serves us well, in our hours of need

[Bernadette]

Divers have determined that the propellers of the USS Intrepid are fully or partially encased in thick mud, so around-the-clock dredging is expected to continue at least into next week to free the aircraft carrier for its delayed trip to a New Jersey dry dock for an overhaul.

A second round of dredging began Monday to remove a mud "speed bump" under the stern that prevented the 29,000-ton vessel from being moved more than 15 feet on Nov. 6.

A contractor hired by the Navy is using cranes with clamshell buckets to dredge approximately 35,000 cubic yards of mud along the aft end of the starboard, or right, side of the ship to create a 200-foot by 30-foot hole that is 35 feet deep. That trench will probably allow the ship to be pulled both sideways out from the dock and backward, and it will allow mud to be removed from the four propellers with suction dredges.

Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, of which the Intrepid is the centerpiece, said six divers working for the contractor confirmed in several dives Tuesday the earlier speculation that the propellers had pushed up a mud mound during the aborted move.

"This tells us that it's a very serious condition down there so the dredging continues 24/7," he said.

White said he is still hoping to move the 920-foot ship to Bayonne during the monthly lunar high tides the first week of December.

In the meantime, the fact that the stern of the ship is resting on the mud pile and is several feet higher than the bow, leaving the ship unevenly supported, remains a problem.

"We're very concerned about the stress and potential fractures underneath the hull," White said.

As a result, the museum has called in the federal National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's environmental response unit for help in case the hull fractures and releases oily ballast water into the river.

"Once we're in Bayonne, we're going to dredge all that stuff out of there," White said.

White said before the first attempted move, the museum had divers and engineers survey the river bed and "it was determined that the silt was light and airy" and would be able to be pushed out of the way as the ship was towed backward into the middle of the Hudson River. But it's now clear, he said, that the immense weight of the ship compacted the silt into dense mud.

The $3-million dredging operation is being paid for by the Navy, and the museum may reimburse the service.

[Bernadette]

Divers have determined that the propellers of the USS Intrepid are fully or partially encased in thick mud, so around-the-clock dredging is expected to continue at least into next week to free the aircraft carrier for its delayed trip to a New Jersey dry dock for an overhaul.

A second round of dredging began Monday to remove a mud "speed bump" under the stern that prevented the 29,000-ton vessel from being moved more than 15 feet on Nov. 6.

A contractor hired by the Navy is using cranes with clamshell buckets to dredge approximately 35,000 cubic yards of mud along the aft end of the starboard, or right, side of the ship to create a 200-foot by 30-foot hole that is 35 feet deep. That trench will probably allow the ship to be pulled both sideways out from the dock and backward, and it will allow mud to be removed from the four propellers with suction dredges.

Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, of which the Intrepid is the centerpiece, said six divers working for the contractor confirmed in several dives Tuesday the earlier speculation that the propellers had pushed up a mud mound during the aborted move.

"This tells us that it's a very serious condition down there so the dredging continues 24/7," he said.

White said he is still hoping to move the 920-foot ship to Bayonne during the monthly lunar high tides the first week of December.

In the meantime, the fact that the stern of the ship is resting on the mud pile and is several feet higher than the bow, leaving the ship unevenly supported, remains a problem.

"We're very concerned about the stress and potential fractures underneath the hull," White said.

As a result, the museum has called in the federal National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's environmental response unit for help in case the hull fractures and releases oily ballast water into the river.

"Once we're in Bayonne, we're going to dredge all that stuff out of there," White said.

White said before the first attempted move, the museum had divers and engineers survey the river bed and "it was determined that the silt was light and airy" and would be able to be pushed out of the way as the ship was towed backward into the middle of the Hudson River. But it's now clear, he said, that the immense weight of the ship compacted the silt into dense mud.

The $3-million dredging operation is being paid for by the Navy, and the museum may reimburse the service.

[Boats]

Unrep at sea -

[locksly]

Well since it's a museum, there won't be a hasty Change of Command ceremony. I've seen a couple of quiet C.o.C.'s on our submarines for touching mud.

Eric T.
4 Point
Member # 6300
TnDeer.Com

I saw a not so quit change in command when the USS Leahy CG-16 hit a pile of rocks leaving port in Japan. It knocked off the sonar dome and messed up the bottom spent a long time in port drydocked and getting a new bottom and bow .

[Seascamp]

In theory at least, the Harbor Pilot is in command once the tugs hook up. But sometime ago one of our carriers ran aground just near the S.F. Bay Bridge on the Oakland side and was stuck, stuck, stuck. It was a homecoming deal from 7th fleet deployment so lots of VIP?s hanging out, plus family and Navy bands, and plenty of fanfare to come down at Alameda.

Not to be, and some four striper met his end of career soon after. The Harbor Pilot claimed variously, faulty harbor charts, a shifted sand bar, inaccurate hull draft specifications but at the end of it all, the Skipper had to take the cup of hemlock. As I recall, they had to wait until oh-dark-thirty for the right tide and then came on in to a berth that was empty of spectators except for line handlers, etc. Crummy story, but that?s the way things go sometimes.


Scamp