With the sinking of the K-77...

[Darrin]

How many of the boats have gone through their procedures for securing the boat at night and then gone through all of your stuff and seen what equipment that they need to get water out of the people tank before that tragedy happens to your beloved boat..  I know on Torsk we went through and did a good inspection/investigation as to what we would have to do to get the water out of the people tank before she sat on the bottom and rolled over and played turtle.

One of the big things that we have been able to get and make functional is a P-250 for dewatering and we finally got the hard suction hoses for it and the discharge hoses so we can dewater the boat from topside to all compartments now and our HN (TorskDoc) has been able to get all of this gear together and get it all working just in case.

The big problem that we found was the salvage air lines had rotted through in areas and that the valves were inop and even a couple of valves had been gutted out by the Reserves to run power through them so that was and is a big hurdle to over come but we have been able to go around it by getting the P-250 up and running.

[Paul Farace]

Yes, virtually all the boats would be up shitcreek with a stone paddle in the event of a major sinking...  gaskets are old, pathways fouled by cables or bulkheads compramised, pumps missing or unworkable, salvage air lines sandblasted, painted, and rusted into uselessness...

I've always thought that having a very powerful pump onhand or the phone number for the rental plance handy was a good idea. We don't have to sorry too much at COD because the boat sits in about 3-4 feet of water, max!  So any catastrophic hole in the boat would likely only flood the below decks area and actually wash the main deck floors!  But having a good plan to respond to such nightmares is a good idea and actually I think is required in the NHS collections management policy (yes?)...

come near by boat with a can opener and we're gonna rock and roll, buddy!!!   

PF

[Rick]

fortunately we are on dry land and this is not as big of a conern for us.   I do admit we do sit on a flood plain and the old girl has been known to float at her moorings,  the Corp of engineers have blessed us with an extensive dam system and regulates the water very well. 

[Lance Dean]

Dang I hope the Drum doesn't sink.   

I seriously thought that *most* museum subs sat in very little water, like Paul said about the Cod.

[Darrin]

Well Torsk sets in about 6-8' of water and there are a few boats that are still waterborne but stuck deep in the mud, shouldn't be a problem for them right? what happens over the years and the boat moving back and forth slowly in the mud starts to wear through the paint and the water and other contaminates starts to eat the metal and then the hull slowly rots through? what are those boats going to do (i.e. Clamagore) when the water enters the people tank??? all of the hard work that has been done will have been for nothing. I have a pic on my computer at home with the Cavalla who is setting ON land that shows her what looks like she was at sea when the park she is in flooded out during a big storm, fortunatly there was no damage to her but I do know that for a number of years her torpedo tube outer door seals would leak and flood the tubes..

FYI there are museum boats that have not been out of the water for a shipyard period in over 50 years, the boats are supposed to come out every 7-10 years for a drydock period so that the small holes can be patched and a fresh coat of bottom paint can go on to preserve her for many more years to come.

This all comes back to IF you have your boat on dry land and you cut holes in her sides for access, what are you prepared to do for the storm of the century or just one hell of a storm??? K-77 followed their approved procedures for closing the boat at night and what they did was right but with the amount of access holes and other holes cut inside her people tank when the water started to come in there was nothing that they could do other then watch her sink and then roll over to a nasty angle.

IF everything goes right she will be on the surface today and HOPEFULLY the clean up will begin instead of the removal of tools and personal gear that hasn't been destroyed by water for a removal from her moorings to either be chopped up or sank somewhere else either in a sinkex or as an artifical reef.

When Growler was pulled out of the water after the Intrepid finally got removed from the mud it cost roughly a million dollars just to fix her hull and do other minor repairs to her before refloating her.

[Lance Dean]

Isn't there some kind of barnacles that causes major hull damage?  I think I recall Fred Tannenbaum mentioning that.

There is no good solution.  It would seem there is no way floating sub museum boats will continue to gain enough funds to have proper drydocking at decent intervals.

[Darrin]

Bowfin used to suffer from those barnacles and oysters growing on her hull and eating away at it, the Navy divers would go over every other year and scrub her down below the water line with their mechanical brushes (when they did the squadron boats that had the same problem on the screws and hull because it would emit cavitation into the water if it was on the screw and it would slow the boat down if it was built up badly on her hull) and from time to time they would have a clam back after that.

And yes sadly there isn't enough people behind our submarines to get them all taken care of, Pamp and Bowfin have been lucky to have a good deal of support from Hollywierd and the Navy in drydocking those boats and Torsk hasn't been out of the water since '97 and for the last 4 years I have been with her we keep getting told that next year we will be in the yards for a "shave and a haircut" and to fix the small holes in the ballast tanks. Brackish water is a pain in the butt because it eats the hull pretty badly and with a good zinc anode (sp?) system onboard you can prolong the life of your hull for a number of years because the purpose behind that system is to draw the harmfull particulates to the sacraficial anodes and let them be destroyed instead of the hull. And those should be checked annually and replaced when at 50% deterioration