The Wavertree

I had the pleasure of visiting the South Street Seaport Museum in 1993 on a visit to New York to see my mother, who was ill at the time. Since then, the WAVERTREE had fallen into a deplorable condition of decay. Somehow, the necessary funds were found to restore the grand old lady. She was towed to Caddel Drydock and Repair Yard on Staten Island for a $10 million restoration. Twenty massive steel plates were replaced below the waterline, new ballast system incorporated, main deck replaced, 'tween decks replaced, bulkheads installed between cargo holds and new masts and spars replacing the old and decayed origionals. It is a hope that the required funds can be sought to keep this ship available for future generations.

Happy modeling.   Crackers   

Anthony,

The article I linked in my post above says that she's going to be done ahead of schedule. That's great news!

Not all the iron plates had to be replaced. "Last May, workers brought it by tugboat to the Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company in the Richmond Terrace section of Staten Island and expected to replace 10 large metal plates on the hull. Instead, the 4 ½-by-20-foot slabs of iron, which sit below the water line, needed only minor repairs."

I hope to get back to Manhattan in the next year or two and see how she turned out.

Mike

Really interesting. At last, some good news in the historic ship preservation field.

The only thing in the Times article that made me raise my eyebrows is the statement that the wood planking on the main deck was removed and "replaced" with steel. I hope that's not a literal explanation of what was done. If the deck was originally wood it should stay wood. But I suspect something got lost in the translation.

Among museum and conservation professionals, South Street Seaport has long had an extremely mixed reputation. It got started with the very best of intentions, insufficient funding, and utterly unrealistic ambitions. Maintaining and interpreting a steel ship the size of the Peking, for instance, is a staggeringly expensive proposition. In addition to the initial expenses of restoration, the annual bills for maintenance and conservation are likely to be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. She was in pretty ratty condition when she came to New York - and, though lots of work and money have been poured into her, she still doesn't look much like she did in her glory days. I think the decision to send her back to Germany was the right one. I just hope the Germans know what they're getting into. I think they do.

It looks to me like South Street is in better, more professional hands now than it ever has been - and this latest development is a huge step in the right direction.

Thanks, Mike, for posting the article.

I feel your pain, EJ, but like professor Tilley mentioned, keeping a historic ship is a costly project, especially where funding is scarse, or difficult to collect. Often, more durable material is applied that will last longer than the original. A case in point is the U.S.S. OLYMPIA, the only relic of the Spanish-American War and the flagship of Admiral Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay. The deterioration on this vessel has become so far advance and the cost of restoration so prohibitave, that scrapping has been suggested.

Happy modeling    Crackers  

Concrete was poured on the Texas.

Even our good O'Brien lives on hand outs.

It's a mixed bag for me on preserving the steel sailing ships.

On the one hand, the active training ships are fantastic.

On the other, these old cargo haulers, Balclutha included, i am not sure why.

GMorrison said:

"On the one hand, the active training ships are fantastic. On the other, these old cargo haulers, Balclutha included, i am not sure why."

Bill,

I make no distinction among the construction materials used in or the raison d'etre of sailing ships - as long as they're beautiful (to my eyes) and interesting (to me) I see no reason not to preserve them.

As far as building model kits is concerned, I have both the Gorch Fock (II) and the Preußen and, were the Preußen still available for preservation I'd be happy to see it happen although the building of the kit may be more than I can hope to accomplish.

Mike

After a little thought, I agree with you.

ejhammer

The USS Lexington, CV-16 in Corpus Christi for instance, they black-topped the flight deck

Only a four hour drive away--yuo'd think they would have learned from the mistakes the Battleship Commission made with Texas.

Little things, like letting some of the blisters flood and concreting over the maindeck until she bottomed out in her slip.  One estimate I saw said that keeping the wood deck, and leaving here afloat would have reduced the cost of the 1988 drydocking by a third.

A blacktop deck, in Corpus Christi, Texas, where they declare a "winter emergency" any time the tmeperature drops below 60º?  Will wonders ever cease?
They proabably ought to fill all the on-deck a/c tires with epoxy, too, they'll stay round as they sink into the deck surface that way.

By the by, birdies have told me that questions have been asked, out loud, and by grownups even, about what plans there are for securing the various things on the Flight deck lest a Cat 3 roll into the Sparkling City by the Sea and toss them all into the central business district.  Everybody else (Alabama, kidd, Texas, et al) all seem to have a plan . . .
(The eyewall of Ike came down the Ship Channel a good ways, and the storm surge was up to the Park Road, but Texas rode out Ike just fine.)

I'm always reluctant to be too critical of ship preservation projects, because I'm at least generally familiar with what these people are up against.

Taking on such a project means committing millions of dollars to the ship's acquisition and initial repair and restoration. And even if that initial expense can be met, and the ship is opened to the public in reasonably good condition, the money has to keep pouring in, year after year, as long as the ship exists. A lot of projects go downhill because the responsible organization managed to raise the initial funds, but couldn't find money for improvents, repairs, and ordinary maintenance.

A few years ago one of our grad students wrote a thesis about the preservation of several preserved American WWII warships. One of the major things he found out was that the steel used for most hull plating and structure has a limited life; when it gets to be more than 50 years old or so it starts losing its strength. These ships are now at least 75 years old. That's probably why several embarrassing problems with leaks have been taking place.

The example nearest to me, the U.S.S. North Carolina, has been leaking like a sieve for several years. She needs lots of new bottom plates. The proper way to do such a repair is, of course, to put the ship in a drydock - for several months. The nearest facility that could do the job is Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock, which is several hundred miles away. For a while there was talk of towing the old girl up there, but that would have cost close to a hundred million bucks. The state just doesn't have that kind of money, and the ship's private support group doesn't either. (And while she was drydocked the revenue from admission tickets would disappear.) The organization is now talking about building a series of cofferdams at crucial points around the hull and pumping the water out of them, so the welders can work on the weak plates. I don't know how many years that will take.

The correct long-term solution to hull decay is to take the ship out of the water and put her in a permanent drydock. That costs huge amounts too - and the public seems to have a fascination with being able to see the old ships afloat.

The North Carolina's decks make a happier story. Her main and boat decks originally were teak. They got banged up in various ways during the war, and the bad spots were patched with some sort of mastic. A few years ago the governmant of Mayanmar donated several thousand square feet of teak, and gave the ship a bargain price on what was necessary to complete the job. (That may have been the last civilized act the government of Mayanmar committed.) So now she has beautiful, smooth teak decks. (Small catch: At about the same time, the authorities decided to paint her in the dazzle camouflage she wore in the latter part of the war. I'm sure they're aware that the decks were stained blue at that time, but they elected not to paint that beautiful teak.)

Incidentally, they chopped up lots of the original teak into convenient sized pieces. You can buy them through the ship's gift shop.

It needs to be remembered that, regardless of how many glaring mistakes we see in a restored ship, there probably are financial reasons behind them. I'd never dream of working for such a project.

I suggest we continue being critical, but also be sympathetic.

I am also reluctant to criticize these maritime museum organizations, but I sometimes think that some of them take on too much at a time. I live in San Diego, and here at the maritime museum, they now care for a fairly long list of ships and boats:

http://sdmaritime.org/visit/the-ships/ 

The Star of India is a widely recognized symbol of the city, and has graced our waterfront for a long time. I have been amazed at how well the ship has been kept over the years, in such great working order that the ship has taken fairly frequent forays under sail out of the bay, and there is no more impressive and beautiful sight that that ship under full sail, tacking back and forth under her own sail power. But lately the ship has not looked herself. The fore topmast was found to be termite infested, and was taken down for repair. It has now been nearly a year and a half, and the mast has not been re-mounted. The decks have reached end of life, and are being replaced in a very large project which was started a couple of months ago.

Meanwhile, the other star of the museum, the HMS Surprise replica from the movie, was drydocked and repainted (I will say that I disagree with the colors they chose to repaint the figurehead and stern decorations, a strange flecked dark gold color; the movie had the figurehead in a pretty green patina color which I liked much better). The paint job was sorely needed, and the hull looks fine now, but the rigging is literally falling apart. The shrouds, having been required to meet federal safety regulations, are made of a steel cable, but are covered with a plastic/synthetic covering that gives them an authentic rope look. The plastic covering has degraded in the sunlight and has fallen off in big chunks, exposing the much thinner steel wire underneath. I recall visiting the Surprise when it first came,and one of the docents derided and dismissed the Surprise as a Hollywood creation, and pointed out that the Star of India was the real thing. I hope that that attitude is not the prevailing attitude of the museum staff. 

My main point is that an entity such as the maritime museum should be careful in taking on so many ships. I am happy that they have such a problem, and that there are so many wonderful ships and boats on display here, but I do think they have bitten off a bit more than they can chew. When the maritime museum consisted of only three ships/boats on display (Star of India, Berkeley, and Medea), they kept them up quite well. I'd rather have fewer well-kept on display, than many with a resulting degradation of upkeep.

I don't know if this has been posted before, but here is a great video describing the processes as the Star of India tacks and wears:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxCKGS_bLKI 

Enjoy!

jtilley

I'm always reluctant to be too critical of ship preservation projects, because I'm at least generally familiar with what these people are up against. Taking on such a project means committing millions of dollars to the ship's acquisition and initial repair and restoration. And even if that initial expense can be met, and the ship is opened to the public in reasonably good condition, the money has to keep pouring in, year after year, as long as the ship exists. A lot of projects go downhill because the responsible organization

I would like to think  that, I, too, am reluctant to be too critical--even if my writing betrays my failure.

Let me aver, my tolerance  is sore tested when preservation groups do not bother to learn the lessons other such groups have larned.  Which harkens back to those ungilded days when USS Texas was the responsibility of "The Battleship Commission."  Said group did sterling work rounding up oil men's money, donation, grants and the like to take possession of USS Texas.  What they did not do is actually think much beyond last week for their Operation.

Texas really did not have competent caretakers until TBC was  involuntarily dissolved in the mid-80s and the ship passed to Texas Parks & Wildlife, a group who, at the time, had about a century's expereince in caretaking of histoical monuments , artifacts, and places, along with all the State Parks and the wildlife of the State.  (Something which really should have been done from the get-go in 1948.)

TBC adopted and attitude of "it's a ship; ships are in the water; why worry?"  Except they deliberately grounded her in the silty mud of her berth, as tending mooring lines was cost prohibitive.  Then, every passing ship in the Houston Ship Channel left a wake to was ever more silt around her bottom.

Except, Texas is of an age to be riveted (the torpedo blisters are flush welded--a gripe some have with the Trumpy kit).  Only after TPW took over and surveyed the ship were funds collected to get her refloated, then towed to Galveston for her one and only drydocking in 1988.  At which time, she had just spent more time as a museum than on active duty.

So, USCG has not seen fit to certify Texas for towing to Galveston for another drydocking.  The HSC is too narrow and too busy to get an appropriate sized floating drydock to her berth.  So, plans were made up to createa "dry berth" for her.  Bonds for the $25 million were voter approved and made available.  Only to discover that a rather large number of frames under the boilers and enggines needed to be replace lest they cave in.  Which delayed the dry berth for about three years (well, five, now, what with Ike and all).

Only now, ther eis a furor about taking her out of the water.  People want to modify the TPW plans by going to a hybrid solution similar to USS Kidd, where she sits in fresh river water about half the year, if still on her keel blocks).  The people who want this have little idea how much more that adds to the budget--and TPW ha s already priced what the additional paint exposed to salty maritime air will soct them.

None of this is very colse held or secret in anyway--so, other places ought to be observing and learning.  And we all need to heed the lessons learned at Galveston's "Seawolf Park" and how USS Cavalla nad USS Stewart have been treated.neglected/abused (Ike did some good there, both the sub and the DE were prised up from their cocncrete sarcogophuses, and efforts had to be made to address how poorly concreting the ships to their water lines "worked" for preservation.

Jose,

Thanks for linking the Star Of India video. I watched 3 of those videos at a sitting. They're very good AFAIK. They sure helped show me what happens as certain lines are hauled or loosened. I find it's easier for me to understand the nautical terminology after having watched these videos.

A member of our model club brought those video about navigation to a meeting last year. He'd picked them up on a visit to the San Diego Maritime Museum.

In my opinion they're the best, most straightforward explanations of their respective subjects that  I've ever seen, read, or heard. The narrator, Ray Ashley, is the director of the museum - and I'm proud to say he's one of our former students at East Carolina University. ECU couldn't teach him much; he already had a vast amount of sailing experience under his belt - among other experiences.

Geeze. I remember when, during my introductory museum studies class, we had a field trip to the North Carolina Museum of Art scheduled for a particular day, and Ray had to beg off because his wife was in labor. The class stopped at the hospital on the way home (about 9;00 pm), and (astonishingly) the nurses let all twelve of us into Mrs. Ashley's room to see the baby. That baby must have graduated from college by now. I feel old (my normal state these days).

As I remember, there were three or four DVDs in that Star of India series. They're all worth acquiring.

Ray is an extremely smart and well-qualified guy. (After all, he got his training in museum administration from me. LOL.) His MA thesis on the search for the means to determine longitude was one of the best I read in 33 years at ECU. (He wrote it just before Dana Sobel's famous book on the subject was published.) When Ray says that museum is going to do something, you can assume it will happen.