Battleship Texas leaking massively

[Sailor]

100-Year-Old USS Texas Springs Massive Leak

LA PORTE, Texas - Children shimmy up the barrels of massive cannons on the upper decks of the 100-year-old Battleship Texas, focused on firing at an imaginary enemy and oblivious to the tension in the historic vessel's belly where a crew works on pumping out dozens of gallons of oil-laced water.

The battleship where the young tourists roam became flooded over the weekend. Staff arrived Saturday and immediately noticed something was wrong with the ship that fought in World Wars I and II and has served since 1948 as a memorial and museum to those who sacrificed their lives.

The vessel was sitting awkwardly in its slip. She was lower in the water and listing to the left.

"We got down to the lower portions of the ship and discovered that we had taken on more water than usual in areas that we normally don't," ship manager Andy Smith said. "They started pumping throughout the day Saturday, and it got progressively worse."

The situation was so dire by Sunday that the ship's caretaker, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, had to find more pumps to help remove the water. Smith said the news got worse on Monday.

More here:
www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/14/100-year-old-uss-texas-springs-massive-leak.html?comp=7000023435700&rank=4

To my knowledge Battleship Texas is the only surviving WWI battlewagon remaining anywhere in the world. She served with distinction in both World Wars, helping to bottle up Germany's High Seas Fleet after the US entered WWI and during WWII with her sister New York and the even older Arkansas faced the Germans again, dueling with shore batteries at Normandy.

[Sailor]

Leak shuts down Battleship Texas indefinitely

The 100-year-old Battleship Texas, the last remaining dreadnaught that fought in World Wars I and II, closed indefinitely Monday as staff try to repair several holes allowing nearly 2,000 gallons of water per minute into the vessel, the ship's manager said Monday.

The leaks plaguing the ship, which fought as the USS Texas, have highlighted the need to enact a multimillion dollar plan to dry dock the vessel, removing it from the salty waters of Buffalo Bayou and the Houston Ship Channel, where it has sat for several decades.

"The ship is not as good as she was. She's leaking, again," Smith said, the frustration clear in his voice. "I think she's getting persnickety in her old age."

The vessel first closed to the public earlier this month when a leak allowed water into areas of the ship that still held oil from its time in active duty. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the ship's caretaker, had to hire a company to skim the oil before it was able to pump out the water and patch the hole.

The museum reopened Saturday, only to close again Monday when staff discovered water flowing in from several different areas in the port and starboard sides of the ship.

"This is definitely not one leak, and they're clustered in two different areas," Smith said.


Read more: www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/06/26/leak-shuts-down-battleship-texas-indefinitely/#ixzz1zpoWXnZP

The old gal's bottom is rotting out. She's suffering the same ills that any old ship would, that the much younger Carrier Yorktown in Charleston SC is suffering and if she isn't drydocked and more than a simple patch job is done she is going to sink right there at her moorings.

There are plans being drawn up to permanently dock Texas in a "dry slip" that, as the name implies, would permanenly drydock her just as HMS Victory and several other historic vessels have been. She'd never touch salt water again.

Some museum ships like Carrier Intrepid in New York and Battleship Massachussets are periodically drydocked for preservation work, but this is very expensive and usually the non-profit groups who take custody of these ships have forgotten the old axiom "a ship or boat is nothing more than a hole in the water, lined with wood or steel into which one dumps huges amounts of money."

The costs of preservation increase expotentially with the size and age of the ship and the money just isn't there to do it. Like Texas, Yorktown is in danger of sinking at the pier and the Navy is threatening to reclaim the WWII veteran. If that happens her next stop would be Brownsville Texas to be broken up just as her younger namesake, the Aegis cruiser Yorktown (CG 48) has been.