Ag_of_08 said:
terata said:
It's very disappointing no one seems to GAF about the fate of the USS Texas. Plug the hole, pump the water out, sit it up on a permanent drydock, then maintain it.
It's not as easy as plugging a hole and dry docking.
The ships hull has actually corroded away to a point that her 100+year old hull would not be able to support itself in dry dock.
The reason she's being moved for repairs is to reinforce it to be dry docked.
That is correct. But what is even more concerning is that it is far from obvious that the
Texas can make the transit down the channel and to any drydock.
Are any of you familiar with the salvage of the USS
Oklahoma in 1943-1944 after Pearl Harbor? The fears of it sinking in channel just on the very brief trip across to the dry-dock there? (Her damage was far, far, far, greater, so don't take analogy too far).[In fact,
Oklahoma DID sink on the way back to the West Coast] But the concern is this -- if a patch of weakened hull gives way suddenly, if she floods, the pumps are not what they used to be. She could capsize and founder IN the channel. The cost in lost shipping and delays is astronomical for anyone familiar with the importance of the Houston ship channel.
By far the best route would have been to make her simply part of the dock where at, fill it in, something like was done with the
Mikasa of Battle of Tsushima fame in Tokyo and other ship preservations. But they have waited so long that allegedly the hull can't take the necessary "concretizing' encasement either. I am not sure I believe that though.