Author Topic: One small step!  (Read 20230 times)

Offline Buggsy

  • Seaman Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 14
  • Total BZs: 1
    • View Profile
One small step!
« on: February 19, 2010, 08:39:26 PM »
I can't speak for the future of the boat in regards to her future but hopefully a little step forward may be happening. ???

I've been talking to some of the staff at Patriots Point and hopefully we are about to begin an interior deep cleaning project on the old girl.  A good, old fashion Field Day!  This will be a volunteer effort to clean areas that haven't seen a foxtail since the old girl came here. :-[  She's getting a refurbished name board next week too.

Perhaps as the cleaning progresses some other areas can be opened for public viewing, such as the conning tower.  Tiny steps perhaps but perhaps its a positive step in the right direction.

Offline nomad66

  • Petty Officer 3rd Class
  • *
  • Posts: 64
  • Total BZs: 3
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2010, 08:52:01 PM »
Sounds great. I sure wish I could have met up with some of you volunteers when I was down there last summer.

Offline navywrslr

  • Seaman Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 8
  • Total BZs: 1
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2010, 02:45:07 PM »
Please contact me about doing this,want to be involved since I volunteer at the Point. Big problem with opening the Con is the safety and insurance issue,having civilians climbing up and down the ladder to the Con is not safe,to much chance of people falling adn suing.

Offline Tom Bowser

  • USS Drum Restoration Foreman
  • Petty Officer 1st Class
  • *
  • Posts: 442
  • Total BZs: 12
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2010, 07:03:10 PM »
The Drums conning tower has ben open to the public since 1969 and we have not had a single injury (knocking on wood extremely hard). It is not any more hazardous than the Cods vertical entrance ladders, in fact not as bad because it is a shorter distance to fall.
Tom

Offline Lance Dean

  • USS Drum Fan
  • Forum Administrator
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1522
  • Total BZs: 10
  • John calls me "Gunner"
    • View Profile
    • My website
Re: One small step!
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2010, 07:28:40 PM »
I'd take a wild guess and say that 5 out of 6 visitors won't climb up into the conning tower anyway.  Just us weirdos do it.   :uglystupid2:

Offline navywrslr

  • Seaman Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 8
  • Total BZs: 1
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2010, 08:25:12 PM »
The Clamagore has unsupervised tours(one thing I wish we could stop),so there is no control to prevent the many children who are un supervised by parents (some are and the parents dont seem to care) from running full speed around the boat. I am positive that if the Con was opened,we would have broken arms,legs and possible deaths with in the first day.
Another problem is that this would become a bottle neck,people waiting to go up into the Conn,and the people trying to come back down.Lets face it,these boats were never built with the idea that one day they would become museums. I have seen the RazorBack and the Torsk,and they have guided tours,so control can be maintained,that seems to be a better way to display these great ships.

Offline Darrin

  • USS Torsk Volunteer
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1288
  • Total BZs: 17
  • School of the Boat Guru
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2010, 03:47:38 PM »
The only time that I know that the Torsk has her Conning Tower open is when the Volunteer crew is onboard and the only people that get to go up are subvets and crew, and when we are not onboard we have a metal grate covering it so you can still look up into the conn.  And I wish that our tours were truly guided, we have docents onboard but as far as true tour guides :2funny:

Offline Buggsy

  • Seaman Apprentice
  • *
  • Posts: 14
  • Total BZs: 1
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2010, 09:14:52 AM »
Perhaps as the cleaning progresses some other areas can be opened for public viewing, such as the conning tower. 

Please note that in my original post I stressed public viewiing, not public access! ::)  The Clam needs help and nothing has irritated me more than everyone telling me what we can't do!  We need positive action not idle chatter why we can't or shouldn't do this or that. >:(  Perhaps, with some restrictions, we can get folks greater access and perhaps only a look through a piece of plexi glass or steel grate but first we have to remove the DIRT.

Offline Tom Bowser

  • USS Drum Restoration Foreman
  • Petty Officer 1st Class
  • *
  • Posts: 442
  • Total BZs: 12
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2010, 08:56:11 PM »
The Drum is totally unescorted or supervised and the conning tower does create a bottleneck. We are thinking of closing it with a viewing cage at the top to end the vandalisim. People today don't supervise their kids and have no respect for history.
Tom

Offline Mark Sarsfield

  • Former USS Batfish Volunteer
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1514
  • Total BZs: 9
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #9 on: March 08, 2010, 06:15:12 PM »
The cage has paid off for us at the top of the ladder.  We had one family get up thereby accident during an event weekend and wouldn't you know it, they broke a bakelite knob off of the sonar gear.   :tickedoff:

The latest vandelism that I observed was the 1MC power indicator (lamp) cover missing.  Not happy at all.

Regards,
Mark Sarsfield
USS Batfish reenactor



"If you have one bucket that can hold 5 gallons and one bucket that can hold 2 gallons, how many buckets do you have?" - IQ test from Idiocracy

Offline Lance Dean

  • USS Drum Fan
  • Forum Administrator
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1522
  • Total BZs: 10
  • John calls me "Gunner"
    • View Profile
    • My website
Re: One small step!
« Reply #10 on: March 08, 2010, 06:55:32 PM »
The Drum is totally unescorted or supervised and the conning tower does create a bottleneck. We are thinking of closing it with a viewing cage at the top to end the vandalisim. People today don't supervise their kids and have no respect for history.
Tom

Tom, if you devise a cage, please make it where it could be unlocked and opened easily for us "special" visitors.  Also, give me a key.   ;)  And maybe try to make it where visitors can still use a camera to take a photo of the conn through the cage.

Offline Tom Bowser

  • USS Drum Restoration Foreman
  • Petty Officer 1st Class
  • *
  • Posts: 442
  • Total BZs: 12
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #11 on: March 08, 2010, 07:16:10 PM »
Indicator lens, and knobs are the most pilfered and the covers for the phone jacks and electric outlets. We were working under the deck today and heard a bunch of noise coming from the conning tower. I went inside and there was about 6 guys from a school group and I think they were trying to get into the locked lockers, I chased them off the boat. Parents today just don't raise their brats right and some of the parents are just as bad.
Tom

Offline Darrin

  • USS Torsk Volunteer
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1288
  • Total BZs: 17
  • School of the Boat Guru
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2010, 09:58:08 PM »
We have the Christmas tree crystal's removed all the time, along with the 21/27 MC microphones and for us to keep the JA phone connectors on the boxes and the list goes on and on and on :knuppel2:  For Paul and the folks on the COD they are the truly lucky ones because they are a 1 ship museum and they have a true choke hold going in and out of the boat and in and out of the park, they can leave silverware and just about anything they want out and not worry about it being bothered or broken let alone stolen :tickedoff:


Offline Paul Farace

  • USS Cod Volunteer
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 572
  • Total BZs: 12
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2010, 02:55:42 AM »
Choke hold on our visitors???  :tickedoff:

I haven't choked anyone in a decade!!!  (That body finally stopped smelling only last year in Tube #7)...

The whole issue of how to present a boat could fill a New York phone book several times and would be different for every sub. But like the man said, "gotta remove the dirt first!"

Good luck Clam! You deserve it.

Now Darrin... I have a choke hold for you pal!!!     :knuppel2:

Only you're bigger than me....   :-*
Johnny Cash's third cousin, twice removed

Offline Darrin

  • USS Torsk Volunteer
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 1288
  • Total BZs: 17
  • School of the Boat Guru
    • View Profile
Re: One small step!
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2010, 01:15:18 PM »
Paul,

Geeez ya wanta choke me for tellin da truth :'(   You have your gift shop at the gate (the only entrance to the park) and you don't have your weapons shipping hatches removed and stairs installed, what more could a museum want :smitten:

Just remember that IF you would have had a TM onboard you wouldn't have had to smell what was coming out of tube #7 for all of those years, we would have shut the drain and the vents :2funny: