Comments on Artificial Owl: The Ghost fleet of the Bay Area : Boat cemetery in...

You should have seen the James River (about 20 mil...

2009-08-06T12:06:13.127-07:00

You should have seen the James River (about 20 miles north of Norfolk, VA) Reserve Fleet in it's heyday. They have been steadily sending ships to the scrapyards for the last 8 years. So far, they've sent 81 ships to be scrapped since the beginning of 2001. The 82nd ship was scheduled to leave the mothball fleet today, 8/6/09. According to public records, at it's peak in 1950, the US National Defense Reserve Fleet had 2277 ships in it's fleets at James River, VA, Beaumont, TX, and Suisun Bay, CA. I've only actually seen James River, and it was amazing the number of ships that were held there. JR was also the location of the Savannah, the world's only nuclear-powered commercial merchant vessel.

yeah in theory, fortunately most of the ships are ...

2009-07-23T23:44:21.467-07:00

yeah in theory, fortunately most of the ships are auxiliaries that do not need much in the way of defensive systems upgrades. Most of the refit would have to be communications and crypto gear to be able to talk to the ships they are dealing with for fuel, ammo and maintainance that they would deal with. Might be an idea to take one of the old tenders off the coast of Somalia for a mother ship for the antipirate teams there.
Foo

thanks to all the tree-huggers, the amount of pape...

2009-07-21T23:51:18.533-07:00

thanks to all the tree-huggers, the amount of paperwork needed to scrap a Navy ship is approximately 80% of the volume of the original ship. The mothball fleet at Suisun should be scrapped, but the Navy can never afford the cost of scrapping them in the U.S. (which is required by federal law) or sinking them which would take years of modifications and environmental impact statements. Thus they who are suing are the reason for the mothball fleets existence.
Foo

In theory, these can all be made operational fairl...

2009-04-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

In theory, these can all be made operational fairly quickly, they are a reserve for the US military, and were carefully mothballed.