Dive Planes

[Darrin]

Remember Mark that that is powering both the AC systems and the DC systems and a few of the water borne boats have theirs operational right now.

Lance somewhere on this bbs has pictures of the Cavalla after Hurricane Ike came through and they show the rot and deterioration of the bow and stern planes area and once they got back onboard they actually made the whole display better than what it was before because of having more of the boat exposed.

[Mark Sarsfield]

Because of the way that the main electrical system on the Batfish was gutted, we'll never be able to bring anything major online, except for lighting, radios, and maybe radar some day.

[Jim]

have faith Mark.  Never say never.......

[Mark Sarsfield]

We're missing 3/4" thick copper cables... and a lot of them.  Plus, we'll never be able to replicate all of the missing hardware from the control cubicle.  I don't think that we have those prints.

[Darrin]

IF you don't have the diagrams for the Cubicles, you can always ask the Cavalla, Pamanito folks and others on this bbs and if that doesn't work you can always contact the Navy yard in Washington because I believe that they have all of the boats drawings

[Mark Sarsfield]

How complicated is a control cubicle contact switch to make, though?  It also comes down to cost.... and copper wire isn't cheap.  This sounds like it would be excellent grant "fodder", though.

[Jim]

Back on topic.  We are definitively PORT LIST.  About 1.5 degrees.

[Mark Sarsfield]

After looking at photos on the internet, I concur that we actually are listing to port.  How long is Muskogee Public Works willing to stick around after we dig the stern out?  A trench along the starboard side would be nice, too.  I'm roughly guessing 4 hours of labor in total with a backhoe (and some people with shovels). 

[Mark Sarsfield]

On dig day I'm going to bring my camera and a tripod and photograph the boat from directly astern.  Once we (eventually) get a starboard trench dug I will take another photo from the same spot to document the correction in list.

[Darrin]

Mark,

Per our phone converstation the other night (sorry i didn't post this earlier). And I did recheck what Batfish is currently moored in and it is called a "graving" mooring and what that is for is when a very large ship is being built or sadly in some cases being dismantled. This type of mooring requires little if any mooring lines and if for some reason it floods she hopefully will refloat herself like the Cavalla did during Hurricane Ike which sadly exposed some pretty bad rotted steel and it also opened up a different look for the museum. You may want to look at the Cavalla web page because it does discuss what was needed to clean the bow and stern tubes and preserve them once they were uncovered

Recommendations for digging/releveling the Batfish which currently is leaning 1.5 degrees to port:  a few issues that were brought up that you and I also discussed are:
What happens once the boat starts to list to Starboard and can you stop it once it starts?

As we discussed over the phone, I would NOT use the cleats topside due to them not being attached to the "people tank" and only attached to the superstructure that is in who knows what kind of shape at the cleats.

With that being said, I did call a shipmate of mine and asked him what he would do and a very good solution is believe it or not a simple one: they have been called out riggers or blocks that are welded to the hull to keep her from listing either way once she gets to moving.

Now to get her to try to change her list is first and foremost is dig out the stern planes completely and then contact a Civil Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer and have them come out and design a concrete pads with a very large pad eyes so that you can run cabling through both the forward and aft bullnoses (on the port and starboard sides) and again using the idea of using heavy equipment you could use those with some block and tackle to double the capacity of the pulling power of the equipment and still be safe. And again as we discussed on the phone you may want to have them look at doing spring lines also and you can find the diagram in the mooring plan at www.hnsa.org

Another thought is to also think about relocating your buried shore power connection at this point so that it won't be exposed to the elements (if desired)