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Featured Replies

  • 1 month later...
  • Popular Post

Last day of dry dock tours....pretty cool experience.

Wish may Dad was still around. He would of liked the tour, especially the highlighting today about the refurbishing/refit of TEXAS' 5" guns (Dad was a gunnery officer on tin cans)

edit: Over 4300 dry dock visitors bringing in just over $650,000, with another 150K through souvenir sales... 

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Edited by BillyGoatHill

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 8 months later...

that was the first of two votes

Quote

Galveston Port officials vote unanimously to continue negotiations for Battleship Texas

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/local/galveston/2024/11/04/505007/galveston-port-officials-vote-unanimously-to-continue-negotiations-for-battleship-texas/

 

seawolf park is not a good location for it. better than san jac but you want to be where the foot traffic is, and that isn't seawolf park. 19 really is the best for foot traffic and katie's doesn't actually have a view of the bay, but i assume if this came unmoored it would smash katie's. 15 is behind some gated roads and industrial park, at that point i think 12 would be better and be right alongside royal caribbean's terminal.

  • Author
that was the first of two votes
Galveston Port officials vote unanimously to continue negotiations for Battleship Texas
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/local/galveston/2024/11/04/505007/galveston-port-officials-vote-unanimously-to-continue-negotiations-for-battleship-texas/
 
seawolf park is not a good location for it. better than san jac but you want to be where the foot traffic is, and that isn't seawolf park. 19 really is the best for foot traffic and katie's doesn't actually have a view of the bay, but i assume if this came unmoored it would smash katie's. 15 is behind some gated roads and industrial park, at that point i think 12 would be better and be right alongside royal caribbean's terminal.

Do we have any idea of what’s really going on here? It seems like there was a bit of gamesmanship/ local politics going on to throw a wrench in what seems on its surface to be a win win situation.
5 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


Do we have any idea of what’s really going on here? It seems like there was a bit of gamesmanship/ local politics going on to throw a wrench in what seems on its surface to be a win win situation.

the foundation wants a several decade lease, which i don't think the wharfs board necessarily wants, whatever funding fertita was throwing in isn't locked down, and one of the tenants thinks fertita should lock it up behind his piers instead of behind a competitor.

Sometimes I just don't get nostalgia. Just send the thing to goodwill and get a new one.

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Unsure where else to post this. The aircraft carrier USS JFK CV-67 is being towed from Philadelphia to Brownsville to be dismantled. Should arrive in 2 weeks if someone wants to see it. I discovered a few years ago that a ship breaking yard in Brownsville has cut up many naval vessels including other carriers.

Historic naval aircraft carrier makes final voyage to Texas

  • Author
Unsure where else to post this. The aircraft carrier USS JFK CV-67 is being towed from Philadelphia to Brownsville to be dismantled. Should arrive in 2 weeks if someone wants to see it. I discovered a few years ago that a ship breaking yard in Brownsville has cut up many naval vessels including other carriers.
Historic naval aircraft carrier makes final voyage to Texas

They also have a shit ton of surplus because the Navy stores all the stuff it doesn’t want but can’t immediately get rid of on old ships like this. I went down there sometime around 2006 for work and had a gander. I wound up buying a couple old typewriters that had been packed away in 1953.

They also have a shit ton of surplus because the Navy stores all the stuff it doesn’t want but can’t immediately get rid of on old ships like this. I went down there sometime around 2006 for work and had a gander. I wound up buying a couple old typewriters that had been packed away in 1953.

Woulda been cooler if you said “destroyers” instead of “typewriters.”
9 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Unsure where else to post this. The aircraft carrier USS JFK CV-67 is being towed from Philadelphia to Brownsville to be dismantled. Should arrive in 2 weeks if someone wants to see it. I discovered a few years ago that a ship breaking yard in Brownsville has cut up many naval vessels including other carriers.

Historic naval aircraft carrier makes final voyage to Texas

These ships are stupid expensive to maintain as a museum and there are too many of them to support as tourist attractions.  Brownsville does nearly all of the Navy’s ship recycling and the JFK will be the sixth carrier.  Good jobs for the region and it’s being done safely.  It’s kind of a cool industry to have and if you time it right you can see lots of interesting floating history coming through. 

really need to get down to the valley to see one of these things sitting in the ship channel

8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

These ships are stupid expensive to maintain as a museum and there are too many of them to support as tourist attractions.  Brownsville does nearly all of the Navy’s ship recycling and the JFK will be the sixth carrier.  Good jobs for the region and it’s being done safely.  It’s kind of a cool industry to have and if you time it right you can see lots of interesting floating history coming through. 

We need another transoceanic war so it will get sexy again.

Edited by Degenerate Gardner

In 1957 when my family was stationed in Taiwan, we sailed from Oakland across the Pacific on the USNS Edwin D. Patrick, a WW2 troop transport.
(and back again in 1959 - two weeks each way)

I recently discovered that the Patrick had been scrapped in Brownsville in 2011.

 

 

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3 photos, all right-side up? who are you and what have you done with armybrat?

  • Author

Woulda been cooler if you said “destroyers” instead of “typewriters.”

I agree, but typewriters fit in the cargo hold of a Southwest 737.
11 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:


I agree, but typewriters fit in the cargo hold of a Southwest 737.

You must not be an experienced SWA flyers.  I've seen people cram the equivalent of a Fletcher-class destroyer in an overhead luggage bin on a SWA flight.

Stupid question, but when the USS JFK gets to the tip of mainland Florida, will it continue to hug the coast of the Gulf or make a direct beeline to Brownsville?

55 minutes ago, Matuka said:

Stupid question, but when the USS JFK gets to the tip of mainland Florida, will it continue to hug the coast of the Gulf or make a direct beeline to Brownsville?

My apologies sir, but in the interest of national security, I am unable to confirm or deny its route.

8 minutes ago, Native Horn said:

My apologies sir, but in the interest of national security, I am unable to confirm or deny its route.

 

1 hour ago, Matuka said:

Stupid question, but when the USS JFK gets to the tip of mainland Florida, will it continue to hug the coast of the Gulf or make a direct beeline to Brownsville?

Not sure but it will sail through Monroe, Maryland. 

  • 1 month later...

Long term home will be pier 15

Quote

Ending years of sometimes contentious deliberations, the Galveston Wharves Board of Trustees agreed Tuesday afternoon to berth the Battleship Texas at Pier 15, securing a long-term home for the historic warship and adding an important new element to its growing suite of attractions.

 

https://www.chron.com/gulf-coast/article/battleship-texas-pier-15-galveston-20201425.php

 

Iirc I read something about that industrial zone around pier 15 going away soon. 

Edited by elfenix

Didn't realize Brownsville was one of the US' few breaking yards, and probably only for government-owned vessels.

Among the other maritime industries the US has lost has been ship breaking.

Now most breaking of privately owned vessels is done in India and thereabouts, where they just beach the things and workers swarm over them in abominable conditions.  It's an industrial safety and no doubt environmental disaster.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadani_Ship_Breaking_Yard

Probably one of those industries we're happy to be rid of.

  • Author
Didn't realize Brownsville was one of the US' few breaking yards, and probably only for government-owned vessels.
Among the other maritime industries the US has lost has been ship breaking.
Now most breaking of privately owned vessels is done in India and thereabouts, where they just beach the things and workers swarm over them in abominable conditions.  It's an industrial safety and no doubt environmental disaster.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadani_Ship_Breaking_Yard
Probably one of those industries we're happy to be rid of.

They have a great shop down there at that breaking yard. I bought two really cool vintage typewriters and they have a giant warehouse of random stuff. The Navy used mothballed ships as storage. Then when the ships are broken up, the breakers sell whatever is inside them off. From tiny brass fittings to giant forced air blowers for three story ship boilers. It’s amazing. Worth a trip just to gawk.

Where do the cruise ships tie up? Seems like developing the area around USS Texas into tourist/historical area. Make money off those passengers coming and going.

2 minutes ago, RPM said:

Where do the cruise ships tie up? Seems like developing the area around USS Texas into tourist/historical area. Make money off those passengers coming and going.

There's a big new cruise terminal at 10 and most of the parking is between 10 and 15. It's a great location for the battleship so long as the industrial bit between 15 and 18 goes away (which, as I mentioned up thread, is the plan iirc).

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