
Rusty Navy: The Bay Area's 'Mothball Fleet' Enters a New Era (2017) - spking
https://www.kqed.org/news/11612408/rusty-navy-the-bay-areas-mothball-fleet-enters-a-new-era
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CalChris
As the article points out, the _USS Iowa_ used to be anchored up there. Then
it was transferred down to Los Angeles to become a museum. It was first towed
by tugboats to the Port of Richmond for some inspections and work before it
would be towed down the coast to LA.

There was a call for volunteer shore support on one of the sailing lists I was
on. I thought, sure, I can do that. When the morning came, I was there with my
trusty Harken sailing gloves. Pretty much on time, the _Iowa_ comes up the
channel making the Portrero turn into the harbor channel. It's just freaking
huge and getting bigger. All of my fellow hands have their cameras out,
recording the event.

Finally, it was slowly positioned next to the dock by the tugs and then
someone yells down, at me, _are you the shore crew?_ My fellow deckhands were
still busy with their cameras. So I said, _yes!_ , and he tossed down a line,
a massive eyespliced hawser, to wrap around the dock bollard along with a bit
of anti-friction paper to slip between the two. And then the _Iowa_ came to a
halt.

I had just tied up a battleship, single-handed.

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ggm
I read a write up on the square law scaling on ships and moving resistance in
water. A guy there swore that if you leaned on a battleship with loose cables
long enough you could overcome static resistance and move it, irrespective of
the enormous mass differences between you and the ship. Basically, you can
'pull it along' if you keep trying.

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Johnny555
I'd think that it depends more on the wind load than the mass of the ship.

An Iowa Class battleship is around 887 ft long and around 30 feet from the
waterline to the deck (ignoring everything above the deckline), so that's
26,000 sq ft. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, it seems that it
wouldn't take much wind speed to exceed the force a single human can exert.

~~~
ggm
Oh sure. The point being, there is no huge static resistance in a floating
ship, absent other forces. It might take a while, but you can move one with
human-scale force. Wind would defeat you for sure. Or current.

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twic
> Moving each ship cost about $1 million and involved a 45-day trip behind a
> seagoing tug. In August, the last of the scrapped ships were hauled away to
> Brownsville, Texas, where they are broken down and recycled.

I assume via the Panama Canal! Is there really nowhere on the west coast they
could have gone?

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i_am_proteus
Most commercial shipbreakers are in Asia. India and Bangladesh used to have
the lion's share, but it's an industry that shifts with economic tides.
Brownsville, TX is the only breaker yard in the United States.

~~~
burger_moon
They break (nuclear) ships in Bremerton. When I was stationed there I watched
them pull apart a few subs and a boat.

~~~
i_am_proteus
I too was stationed in Bremerton! PSNS docks are in extremely high demand,
since there aren't that many (on the West Coast, in the US, anywhere) that can
work on nuclear-powered ships.

They also aren't equipped for traditional shipbreaking at scale: recycling the
hull, recovering the steel, &c.

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sizzzzlerz
The Glomar Explorer, of CIA/K129 fame was anchored there for years. When
driving by there, I’d always look for the drilling tower. I’m not sure what
happened to it but it was probably chopped up as well. The thing was massive.

~~~
CalChris
The _Hughes Mining Barge_ , part of the Glomar Explorer project, was kept up
there as well. It had a second life as a floating drydock for the _Sea Shadow_
, a prototype stealth boat. The _HMB_ and _Sea Shadow_ were sold to Bay Ship
for $2.5M with the proviso that the _Sea Shadow_ was broken up (they couldn't
find a museum). Bay Ship got to keep the _HMB_ and it is now used at their
Alameda Estuary facility.

~~~
Mister_X
My father was a designer on the HMB, and "Clementine", the huge Claw that was
used to grasp the sunken Russian Golf Class sub and lift it into the Moon Pool
of the HMB, through it's secret retractable floor.

Of course, that all happened after the HMB was submerged and maneuvered under
the Glomar Explorer.

Just the HMB itself was HUGE!

When it was based at the Port of Redwood City, CA, I drove my dad to work
there a few times, as I'd just gotten my drivers license.

It was really exciting that my father was involved with Howard Hughes and deep
sea mining!

Of course, the CIA project eventually was revealed to the public, and my
father received a large Presidential Commendation, which he had framed and
hung over the kitchen table.

After it was declassified, he was then legally able to show me the claw,
Clementine, and all the other photos he took during the construction of the
Glomar Explorer and the HMB.

I still have several of the black and gray, cauliflower shaped, Manganese
Nodules that were harvested from the deep ocean floor, as part of the CIA
cover story that it was a mining barge for the Hughes Glomar Explorer.

It was only years later that I realized my father was involved in several CIA
black Ops, starting in 1958 or '59 with the Lockheed A-12 at "The Ranch".

He took the "red flight" out of Edwards and would be gone for over a week at a
time, but that's another story.

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saryant
I grew up in Benicia. I always found the mothball fleet to be somewhat creepy
(granted I was 5). A fleet of unused ships anchored just out of town, sitting
dead still. Never moving, always waiting.

