Dive Planes

[Rick]

Ok I will make it official.  For a few weeks now Jim and I have been talking about digging the dive planes out of the ground.  The idea is 2 fold.  1 we are hoping to releave the stress on the aft end.   I personally know that the shelback has developed a ripple in it that changes with the weather.  The boat does have a list and no matter what we do this will have to occur to continue with any plans to corret that list.  The second goal is to expose the after stearing gear so we can have another visual on the boat that has not occured for at least 20 years.  On this side we will be able to assess some of the potential damage that has been caused by the boat sitting on the ground.  I think everyone will be surprised no matter what their opinion is about this situation.  

I have some positive feedback from public works.  They will help us out once thier schedule clears out in the next couple of weeks.  The gentleman that I worked with seemed to be very excited about this project and I look for good things to happen.  I need to sit with Jim and discuss further what we can do to keep this from becoming a big water storage tank / mosquito breeding ground, but I feel this is a good project and it looks like it will be moving ahead.

Rick

[Jim]

Excellent.  I can't wait to get started.   

[Mark Sarsfield]

I was thinking of loose gravel (white stones) to cover the exposed dirt in the new hole.  At least the water that sits in there won't be dirty/muddy looking.  If it stays filled with water, then a small aerator pump would keep the mosquitoes and algae at bay.   If it's a seasonal puddle, then regularly applying mosquito spray to the area would kill off the mosquito larvae.

[Darrin]

Mark,

Call your local stone quarry and see what the cost of  #57 stone is, it is a little larger than gravel but not as large as you see for the rail road beds (ballast)

[Mark Sarsfield]

Thanks, Darrin.  #57.  Got it.

[Darrin]

Mark,

when i was a project manager for the government (733d Civil Engineering Division) we used 57 stone as the base when we would pour concrete and we also used it for road beds as needed.. For our drainage basins we did use larger stone i.e. rail road ballast, that was due to the run off issues coming out of drains and I don't believe that you have a deterioration issue due to storm drains, that and cleaning the trash out of ballast isn't too fun and the ballast tends to be somewhat expensive.

You may want to talk to Jim about putting the ballast stone around your stern planes though  and then do a 57 stone around the boat, the reason behind the ballast stone at the stern planes is that the stern planes do have a large flat  surface area where you will get erosion once unearthed and for the boat setting the way that she does you wont really see a concentrated area like you would for a storm drain. That and with enough of 57 stone you can build up an area so you can bring in equipment for future projects as needed and once compacted it stays in place pretty well.

I may still have the calculations for how much 57 stone is needed for clay/sand/mud based road bed that I used at Ft Eustis, Va.. Sadly my contractors liked to wait until the equipment was stuck in the mud before they would start adding stone to ground and then it was an added expense to drag the stuck equipment out and then slowly try to back fill and then grade with stone until it was firm enough to drive on once more.

If you go to google maps and look at the satelite view of the Batfish you will notice that her starboard side has low depression where water likes to collect (more than the portside) and with the dirt that Jim is removing I would put that on the Starboard side and try to fill in the depression.

Darrin

[Mark Sarsfield]

Sounds like a plan. 

[Darrin]

Mark,

Once you dig out the stern planes you are going to open another can of worms outside of the hull due to Batfish already being inside of a sand bowl, the water like electricity will want to take the path of least resistance and it will all want to go the to stern and set there and collect and stagnate.

With that being said, on a bare bones minimum I mean BARE BONES minimum that I would feel safe to do is length times width of your stern planes (i don't know how much it rains there so you may want to consider the height of the stern planes also) and then times it by 2 just for a small retention pond and then that does NOT include the 100 year flood plan and then put in a liner and fill in part of the area with large stone i.e. ballast or larger if you can afford it.

This new situation does actually help the Batfish because you can dig trenches and put in a "weeping" system down both sides of the boat to remove the water from the rest of the area and bring it back to the stern planes.. What a weeping system is is nothing more than a peferated 3" flexible (if I remember correctly) PVC pipe that is dug at the starts roughly 12" down with 57 stone on the bottom and top and then gradually sloping down (i don't remember the calculations right now and have them in the garage) to your retention pond, although with sand you may have to look into a non traditional weeping system per say.. What that means is while having the heavy equipment onsite have them regrade the areas around the outer hull (pulling the water away from the hull) and add in stone with a plastic barrier underneath down to the weeping system that way most of the water coming off of the hull will not set against the outer hull.

This will help you two fold because you will be removing a good bit of water that lays against the hull and redirecting it to a retention pond and honestly after thinking about it I would build two small ponds one on each side of the boat to remove even more water from the hull of the boat on top of the one for the stern planes.. and you IF you can incorporate all 3 ponds you could have a small display (for the environemtal folks) and if you are froggy enough you may want to look into the RC models that you see at theme parks and have those set up at the stern so that the tourista's have something else to play with that is non destructive, it's that or a nice KOI pond will do the trick.

Just my .02 cents worth

Darrin

[Darrin]

Road work hmmmmm.. this one is a fun discussion that I NEVER thought that would be brought up during a school of the boat

for a traditonal railroad bed on a minimally active rail with a dirt base is 18" of ballast stone(will have to check with the FRA book on that one) FRA stands for Federal Railroad Administration and the Army has a number of manuals on how to build them so that they work for many many years to come... And that is just the base that does not cover the contours of the land

A minimal road bed on dirt roads tends to very from 3" to 6" and IF you have sink holes it can go into FEET of Ballast Stone and 57 stone (found that out the hard way building a new rail spur at Ft Eustis Transportation musem a few years ago)

With that being said, you need to look at what you would like your road bed to do for you.. i.e. crane for loading weapons/equipment bringing in dump trucks to dump off your 57 stone and ballast 

For Tom and his crew he is working on dirt and doesn't have as many issues as the Batfish and remember this is all about the all mighty dollar and what the vision of the museum is because you can't hide railroad ballast stone and 57 stone can be hidden with sand from the existing grounds if needed

Darrin

[Darrin]

Mark,

I forgot that you are not on a permenant hard stand like the Drum and messing with the drainage around the Batfish may cause more erosion and subsequently the base that holds her up to fail and make her list worse. with the only way to get her reset is to fill the basin full of water and hope that she still floats

[Mark Sarsfield]

Darrin,

  I was thinking the same thing about the list.  If we were to dig trenches along each side of the boat to channel water back toward the stern, we would have to fill the trenches in right away and then cover it back up with sand.  the perforated pipe (french drains) might work, but I would think that they would fill up with sand over time.  Especially after a flood.  I guess we could install access caps at the bow ends and blow a pressure washer throguh the pipes once each year.

  Yes, access to the basin can be "fun" when the grounds are wet.  I don't remember how difficult it was for the last truck that went in there with the torpedoes to navigate.  I remember it being hot when they offloaded the torpedoes.  Usually, when we get into the hot season there isn't any water sitting in the basin unless it recently rained (a lot).  It doesn't take long for water to evaporate in OK between the heat and the wind.

[Jim]

Mark,

when i was a project manager for the government (733d Civil Engineering Division) we used 57 stone as the base when we would pour concrete and we also used it for road beds as needed.. For our drainage basins we did use larger stone i.e. rail road ballast, that was due to the run off issues coming out of drains and I don't believe that you have a deterioration issue due to storm drains, that and cleaning the trash out of ballast isn't too fun and the ballast tends to be somewhat expensive.

You may want to talk to Jim about putting the ballast stone around your stern planes though  and then do a 57 stone around the boat, the reason behind the ballast stone at the stern planes is that the stern planes do have a large flat  surface area where you will get erosion once unearthed and for the boat setting the way that she does you wont really see a concentrated area like you would for a storm drain. That and with enough of 57 stone you can build up an area so you can bring in equipment for future projects as needed and once compacted it stays in place pretty well.

I may still have the calculations for how much 57 stone is needed for clay/sand/mud based road bed that I used at Ft Eustis, Va.. Sadly my contractors liked to wait until the equipment was stuck in the mud before they would start adding stone to ground and then it was an added expense to drag the stuck equipment out and then slowly try to back fill and then grade with stone until it was firm enough to drive on once more.

If you go to google maps and look at the satelite view of the Batfish you will notice that her starboard side has low depression where water likes to collect (more than the portside) and with the dirt that Jim is removing I would put that on the Starboard side and try to fill in the depression.

Darrin

I'm thinking more of a concrete box with an aerobic pump and float in the bottom.  When the pump gets activated we pump it to sprinklers to keep the grass around the museum green.

[Jim]

To right the boat we are going to have to free the stern and bow and the bilge keel on both sides to start. Floating will be a hit and miss because once its level it may list again with the water gone depending on where it "sits" in.  The Ling is a victim of that right now.  I am thinking trench the starboard side to allow for ground "crush" into that area, and see if a couple D5 dozers cabled to the welded on barge kleets can give her a "tug" to starboard. We only need about 1-2 degrees.  We would also have to govern from the port side so she doesn't go too far.  Once level, we have to fill in the starboard trench to compaction and add fill to the port to keep if from possibly rolling back.  Theoretically this will all work.  The problem is this will take at least 4 D5 or D6 sized dozers and some back hoes to pull off.  Two to pull and hold and at least one maybe two to secure the fill on both sides.  May need more to cable govern from the port.  Theoretically this will all work.  Marshalling this much equipment will be costly.


Who knows.  Maybe with the bow and stern free she'll right herself.  

[Darrin]

In my honest opinion the best thing for Batfish right now is to get the water away from the hull and keep it away from the hull as best as possible, the Drum is a perfect example of what happens when a submarine is taken out of water and not preserved right away(cleaning the inside of the tanks/free flood areas, priming and painting them before the rot set in) and how long it has taken them to restore her structure.

Using a pair of dozers to try to change the list on the boat right now isn't really an option due to the fact that the cleats are welded to the deck and not to the people tank and at nearly 70 years old they would probably twist and rip themselves out of the deck. To do it correctly you may want to look at how the USS STEWART was refloated after the last hurricane that shifted her in it's dry berth and placed a small boat under her keel, either that or look at how Batfish was brought in and then recalculate how much water it would take to fill in the fish bowl once more and have people ready to move weight from the Starboard side to the Port side.

[Mark Sarsfield]

To right the boat we are going to have to free the stern and bow and the bilge keel on both sides to start. Floating will be a hit and miss because once its level it may list again with the water gone depending on where it "sits" in.  The Ling is a victim of that right now.  I am thinking trench the starboard side to allow for ground "crush" into that area, and see if a couple D5 dozers cabled to the welded on barge kleets can give her a "tug" to starboard. We only need about 1-2 degrees.  We would also have to govern from the port side so she doesn't go too far.  Once level, we have to fill in the starboard trench to compaction and add fill to the port to keep if from possibly rolling back.  Theoretically this will all work.  The problem is this will take at least 4 D5 or D6 sized dozers and some back hoes to pull off.  Two to pull and hold and at least one maybe two to secure the fill on both sides.  May need more to cable govern from the port.  Theoretically this will all work.  Marshalling this much equipment will be costly.

In my honest opinion the best thing for Batfish right now is to get the water away from the hull and keep it away from the hull as best as possible, the Drum is a perfect example of what happens when a submarine is taken out of water and not preserved right away(cleaning the inside of the tanks/free flood areas, priming and painting them before the rot set in) and how long it has taken them to restore her structure.

Using a pair of dozers to try to change the list on the boat right now isn't really an option due to the fact that the cleats are welded to the deck and not to the people tank and at nearly 70 years old they would probably twist and rip themselves out of the deck. To do it correctly you may want to look at how the USS STEWART was refloated after the last hurricane that shifted her in it's dry berth and placed a small boat under her keel, either that or look at how Batfish was brought in and then recalculate how much water it would take to fill in the fish bowl once more and have people ready to move weight from the Starboard side to the Port side.

She's leaning to starboard now.  So, a shift in weight and sand on the port side would be the key.  I've often thought about re-flooding the basin with river water, but it would have to be a large pump with a long hose to reach the river based upon where it is now with a giant sand bar in the way.  We would need at least 10 to 12 feet of water in there to get her to start to float.  It would be a lot easier to "roll" her, even if she just barely started to lift off the sand, with water in the basin.  At that point you would only need one or two tractor to do the "pulling" to port.  Even if we went the flooding route, we still need to break the stern free.  I wonder what a large industrial pump would cost to rent with about 100 yards of fire hose?