As a
lifelong resident of this region, I must say that, while I am realistic, I am a
bit saddened to see these longstanding testaments of our once vibrant ship
building industry, disappear from our sight and eventual memories. Like memories of my father taking me to see
the magical Scott Paper Billboard that changed before your eyes; or, heading
down to Essington Ave and the Airport to watch airplanes take off at the end of
the runway while eating a Geno’s Hero Burger on the hood of his 1970 AMC Green
Gremlin, these old, tattered, beautiful vessels make up the visions embedded
deep in my memories that will always remain when I think of my home. The sentimental side of me yearns to keep
those memories, visions, fresh and eternal in my mind.
**************************************
The Navy
is paying $8.5 million to Philadelphia Ship Repair, a unit of Northeast Ship
Repair, a Boston company headed by Edward Snyder, to pull useful parts off five
1970s-era Navy ships that have been slowly rusting in the Reserve Basin outside
the former Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Navy
spokesman Joseph B. Battista sent me an outline of the "harvesting
effort" the Navy is applying to the five frigates, long visible outside
Urban Outfitters headquarters from the I-95 bridge over the mouth of the
Schuylkill. (My father, Renato T. DiStefano Jr., see p. 48 here, worked on the
electronics for these frigates for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)
(Corrected), the Navy engineering arm which still employs hundreds of engineers
and techs in its offices east of the old shipyard.) -- Adapted from Battista's
note to me:
The Navy
built 51 guided-missile frigates from 1975 - 1989, expecting they'd last 30
years. (This group is called Oliver Hazard Perry frigates, after first ship in
the class, named for the hero of the War of 1812's Battle of Lake Erie, who
built his wooden frigates in the woods of northwest Pennsylvania, and blasted
apart a Canadian-built British fleet.)
Some 15
of those ships remain in service with the U.S. Navy. Others steam for foreign
navies (Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Pakistan, Poland, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey).
Five have been "decommissioned" and stored (Dad called the process
'mothballing") at the basin, the rebuilt arm of the onetime channel that
winds partway around the former League Island (where the base was) and is used
to store old ships (the Delaware is fresh water, which, I was told as a kid,
means that ships here tend to rust less than in other Navy ocean ports on the
salt water).
The Navy
has decided these five frigates are "logistics assets," which is to
say, they will have spare parts removed, then get scrapped. The ships
designated for scavenging and scrapping are "ex- Hawes (FFG 53), ex- Doyle
(FFG 39), ex- USS Stephen W. Groves (FFG 29), ex-USS John L. Hall (FFG 32) ,
and ex-USS Boone (FFG-28)." The Navy agency known as Naval Surface Warfare
Center Carderock Division "took temporary custody of the ships from
Inactive Ships during the harvesting project, for up to 1 year."
The
first, the former Hawes, moved into the
Navy's Philadelphia dry dock #3 on Nov. 5 and will be there 11 weeks while
contractors from Philadelphia Ship Repair pull off what's worth saving.
Philadelphia Ship Repair is being paid $8,476,483, in a "firm-fixed price
contract for up to five ships."
The
"Items to be removed include marine gas turbines, propellers, hubs, oil
distribution boxes, propeller and stern tube shafts, rudders, auxiliary
propulsion units, clutches, pumps, motors, controllers, valves, coolers, oily
water separators, sonar domes, and purifiers. The value of these parts is
estimated at $100 million, if all are reutilized."
So the
Navy saves around $90 million, if all the parts are usable. They'll be rebuilt
at other Navy facilities, or stored in warehouses until other ships need them.
The ship hulls, Battista concludes, "will be returned to Inactive Ships
and put back in the reserve basin upon completion of the harvesting," to
be disposed of by Naval Sea Systems Command.
Source: Philly.com
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