Pointless idea for USS DRUM... but a fun exercise in brain cell massage!

[Paul Farace]

Like the battleship commission will provide money to do this if it were ever considered worthy...   


So when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade:   now that SS 228 is on the keel blocks, it provides an interesting opportunity.  Most boats have access stairs cut through their torpedo loadin hatches, except Siliversides (uses a hole on the port side of the FTR overhead), Cod, and Razorback.  Albacore has side doors cut through the forward non-torpedoroom and the engineering spaces, but has not installed screen doors (yet) 

But DRUM could actually now cut a stair access through her Number 1 ballast tank (I think that is what it is, a good point for School of the Boat), the tank that is U-shaped and creates the bottom of the FTR. The stairs would only have to be 6 or 8-feet tall. That would allow visitors to see a complete FTR without the problem of a big old staircase in the centerline.  Ditto for the ATR, after trim tank?  This might allow the removal of the public safety rails on the deck too!  Hey Tom, just sit back and we'll spend your non-existant money like drunk sailors! OK? 

Hey, food for thought!   (well, the equivalent of Hostess Twinkies junk food for the brain)...

PF

[Tom Bowser]

Paul
Think about what you are suggesting! That would destroy more of the torpedo rooms than a central stair. And visitors want to go on deck and play with the guns. Also then you would have a better chance for flooding inside during hurricanes.

The Park is trying to raise the funds to biuld a walkway from the mezzanine in the pavillion to the deck of the Drum with an elevator.
Tom Bowser

[Darrin]

Paul,

Great idea but my friend BUT you need to take your meds and think about what you are saying..... CUT a hole through the saddle tanks BTW they can be converted to hold diesel fuel and while they haven't had any fuel in many years I still think that it "wouldn't be prudent" to do that. 

[Paul Farace]

OK, so not all my ideas are winners.. 

Just for the sake of exercising brain cells... let's assume you had a fleet submarine (not DRUM... just any boat, say the USS BLACKFISH) and the Blackfish was donated to you and you had to get it out of the water (say you had land, but no dock space)... and so if you were to put it up on land and didn't want to cut holes in the torpedo loading hatchway... a small square hole say in the area forward of the escape trunk and on the centerline, below the false platform deck... a 4 ft by 4 ft square with steps up into the boat...  with the ability to fold down the hinged platform deck plates to cover the opening when not in use! Again, just an excersise in thinking about obscure points.  The Brits were thinking about this regarding two of their diesels... on one they cut into the side, the other is yet to decide what they will do... They are afraid to keep their topside entrance (Gravity sucks when you fall)... they didn't want to lose the nature of the compartments when cutting doors through the hull sides... I only just recently thought about the bottom up (notbody fall ups a ladder!!)...

Wonder if an OBERON FTR is anything like a fleetsub FTR?

PF
 
Hey, where's my meds?

[Darrin]

Personally, I would bury her in the mud like Cavalla and the have ladders fore and aft so that the tourista's could go topside that way you maintain the integrity of the topside hatches and then..... quiver at the thought..... cut the hull open at her saddle tanks at the Fwd battery and at the Aft battery..... While I just argued that that should not be done it would maintain flow and IF you used ACTUAL watertight doors and maintained them along with a bilge pumping system you shouldn't have failure for the first 10 or 15 years or until the seals leak and no one longer cares and then she floods out.  OR you could do what U-505 has done and put her in a shelter and then cut her open while she is on keel blocks allowing the tourista's fulll access to the boat and you won't have to worry about flooding unless the storm of the century comes through and blows all plans out of the water and again IF you have acutal watertight doors on her and maintain them she will be just fine.

[Mark Sarsfield]

Eventually, IMHO, all of these fleet boats will some day have to go into a permanent structure like the U-505.  A lot of her hull was eaten away by the elements.  We already see how much work some of the boats will have to go through just to restore their superstructures.  It's just a matter of time before our boats are forced into the same course of action.  It may be 50 years from now, but I see it coming. 

[Paul Farace]

Mark, you're probably right. But a well maintained steel structure can last hundreds of years. Hell, look at the HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship from 1805! And it's wood!

COD will have a tent large enough to cover her completely!

Yes!

Every frikken year we buy those 10X20 tents from Sam's Club (Cosco) and our staff leaves them up too long and then a monster lake storm tears them apart and we store the scrap steel tubes and ripped tent fabric. It's only a matter of time before we duck tape the tent fabrics together to make a 10-acre tent large enough to wrap COD!

 


PF

[Darrin]

Sadly there are a couple of boats right now that that might not be a bad idea for them to do, however that takes a LOT of money and you have to have the backers to do it. Hell the Clamagore is buried in the mud in Charleston and to get her out to put her in the shipyard will cost HUGE amounts of money just to dredge around the Destroyer or whatever the hull designation is behind her and get her out of the mud and then dredge around Clamagore and patch her hull so she will be sea worthy enough to go to the yards and then hope like hell that she will be able to rest on keel blocks without punching one or two through or breaking her back.. Some of our boats that have not been out of the water in 20 or more years will be interesting to see when they make it to the drydock for the first time and I would hate to have to pay to have her in the yards.. Growler in New Yawk cost a Million big ones just to patch her hull and do other work to her exterior before they refloated her,  they pulled her right after they pulled the Intrepid out of there and if you go to the Intrepid site you can see what they did to Growler.

[Mark Sarsfield]

Mark, you're probably right. But a well maintained steel structure can last hundreds of years. Hell, look at the HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship from 1805! And it's wood!

True.  The USS Texas (BB-35) is the last survivng US Dreadnought and it was built in 1914.  Then, of course, you have all of the wooden ships, including Constitution.  There's also a 19th century steel merchant/sailing ship on the west coast, which I think is the oldest steel ship afloat.