The fate of K-77

[Lance Dean]

http://www.projo.com/ri/woonsocket/content/RUSSIAN_SUB_25_12-25-08_4MCOP66_v16.8d27db3.html

Refloated Soviet sub may be scrapped

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, December 25, 2008

By PHILIP MARCELO

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — The operators of the Russian Sub Museum have determined that their Soviet-era submarine cannot be salvaged, after spending more than a year at the bottom of the Providence River.

The organization’s director, Frank Lennon, said in a statement yesterday that the museum has agreed to hand over the badly deteriorated sub to Rhode Island Recycled Metals, which will move it downriver to the company’s Allens Avenue property by the end of next month.

If there are no offers to buy the vessel intact, the recycler will dismantle it and sell it for scrap.

“We made every effort to figure out a way to restore this historic vessel and reopen her as a public attraction,” said Lennon. “Marine surveyors and salvage experts helped us evaluate the options, and we finally concluded that after 15 months underwater, the condition of the interior is such that restoration is simply not a financially viable option for our group.”

The K-77, which is also often referred to as Juliett 484, sank in the spring of 2007 after its hatches were apparently left open during a rainstorm.

Since the 43-year-old vessel, a diesel-powered cruise missile sub, was raised from the muddy river bottom last July by a team of military divers, its fate has been up in the air.

Lennon says the cost of an overhaul to resume using it as a museum would far exceed its value, pegged several years ago at about $1 million. The museum foundation fielded offers from groups interested in sinking the sub in deep water to serve as an artificial reef, but nothing substantive materialized.

“We have inquiries as far away as Australia,” Lennon said, “but having inquiries is one thing. Having a solid interest or request is another.”

Meanwhile, the sub, closed to visitors, remains berthed at Collier Point, a waterfront park off Allens Avenue owned by Dominion Power Company, where the sub had operated as a museum for five years.

The power company has been urging Lennon’s organization to either restore it or take it away, because its closure has restricted access to the park and a public boat ramp there. Repairs to the piers damaged in the sinking cannot begin until the sub departs, according to Lennon.

“Our landlord, Dominion Energy, as well as the Coast Guard and other regulatory agencies have been very fair and patient with us through this whole ordeal,” said Lennon. “We owe it to them to move the sub as quickly as possible.”

Lennon declined yesterday to elaborate on the terms of the agreement between the museum and the recycler, but it is likely that the foundation would get a share of what the 3,000-ton submarine fetches as scrap. (It’s nearly two-thirds steel.)

Lennon has said previously that any revenue would go toward the organization’s efforts to bring the aircraft carrier Saratoga, a Cold War-era supercarrier, to Providence as a museum. The organization had raised $10 million toward the goal as of last year. Lennon is president of the USS Saratoga Foundation, which had operated the Russian Sub Museum.

One of the problems the organization has faced in recent months is gauging how much the submarine is actually worth in today’s market for scrap. In the spring, the sub, which also contains copper and other precious metals, was worth about $5 million, according to Lennon.

But the Chinese government’s closure of factories that purchased large amounts of American scrap metal in anticipation of the Summer Olympics, coupled with the overall decline in the global markets in recent months, has led to a steep decrease in metal prices, Lennon said.

Edward Sciaba, of Rhode Island Recycled Metals, says the depressed market in scrap may make restoring the sub a more appealing option: “… [T]here is a still a good chance for another end user to step in, purchase the sub and relocate it.”

But if the sub is ultimately scrapped, Lennon says, the museum foundation will salvage what equipment it can for a future display about Soviet Cold War era submarines or to sell the artifacts to other sub museums.

“We plan to remove items such as the periscopes, torpedo tube doors, missile firing stations, engine order telegraphs, and various other controls and gauges.”

The K-77 was commissioned in 1965 and served in the Soviet Baltic and Northern fleets until its decommissioning in 1994. Later it was reincarnated as a restaurant on the North Sea and was used in the making of the 2002 Harrison Ford film K-19: The Widowmaker.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=456&sid=1558763

Sunken Soviet sub needs buyer _ or it's scrapped

December 25, 2008 - 7:05am

By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A former Soviet cruise missile submarine that was once featured in a Hollywood film and sank in the Providence River during a storm last year will be converted to scrap metal if no one agrees to buy it, the president of the foundation that owns it said Wednesday.

The 282-foot submarine, also known as Juliett 484, began serving as a floating educational museum in 2002, until it went down during a powerful nor'easter in April 2007.

Army and Navy dive crews raised the sub in a training exercise last July, and inspections showed the vessel had deteriorated and corroded during its 15 months underwater.

Restoring it to an operational museum would have cost more than $1 million, said Frank Lennon, director of the Russian Sub Museum and president of the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation, a private, nonprofit group.

"Based on the input we received from experts, the cost of restoring it was beyond our capabilities," Lennon said.

A local company, Rhode Island Metals Recycling, LLC, has agreed to move the sub downriver and eventually dismantle it for scrap metal if no one offers to buy it intact by the end of January.

"We remain hopeful that someone will step forward who might be interested in taking over the stewardship of this very interesting Cold War relic," Lennon said.

The sub, alternatively designated as K-77, was launched in 1965 as part of the Soviet Northern Fleet. The Juliett class was initially planned as a nuclear missile platform for strikes against the United States and later tracked U.S. aircraft carriers.

The sub was used in the 1990s as a restaurant and vodka bar in Helsinki, Finland, and as a set for the 2002 Harrison Ford movie "K-19: The Widowmaker" before being acquired by the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation.

It opened as a museum in Providence in 2002 and drew tens of thousands of tourists over the years.

Lennon said the museum would remove artifacts such as periscopes, torpedo tube doors, missile firing stations and other items before the sub is dismantled.

He said he had received inquiries about the sub, including one from an Australian group that wanted to sink it and use it as a reef, but no serious offers.

[JTheotonio]

  Sad 

[Lance Dean]

Just in from Ken Johnson over on Rontini's BBS:

Sounds like things are finally about to move in Providence - literally. Allied Recycling is  apparently prepping their property a mile or so down Narragansett Bay to receive the Russian Juliett sub and commence demolition. Move may finally be taking place within the next couple of weeks. Assuming I am not persona non grata on the site these days, I plan one or more recon expeditions to Providence over the next few days to see for myself what is actually going on. Stay tuned either here or, if you have Facebook access, to the "Russian Sub Museum" fan page I created there as a memory tribute. There may be one last Facebook photo album there, documenting its final demise soon.

[Lance Dean]

http://www.projo.com/news/content/MELTING_DOWN_THE_SUB_08-11-09_5OFB351_v10.3615b11.html

Providence’s Russian sub to be dismantled from stem to stern

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, August 11, 2009

By Tom Mooney

Journal Staff Writer

The submarine that was the star of the Russian Sub Museum sank to the bottom of the Providence River in a torrential rain storm in 2007.

PROVIDENCE — Imagine a 3,500-ton hot dog resting within an equally gigantic bun and you have a picture of how demolition crews working from two barges will slowly pick away at the former K-77 Soviet submarine starting this week, reducing what was once a waterfront museum into manageable portions of scrap metal.

On Tuesday, crews from Rhode Island Metals Recycling are scheduled to move the submarine, which has been tied up at Collier Point Park off Allens Avenue for seven years, down the Providence River about 1,000 yards. From there they are expected to cut open the top of the sub and remove the copper, brass and other metals before turning their attention on the submarine’s hull.

The entire job should take about three months, said Edward Sciaba, general manager for the recycling company: “It’s going to be very interesting.”

Armed with metal-cutting torches, workers are expected to first remove the four missile silos aboard the Cold War-era sub before removing the sub’s sail, said Sciaba.

That will allow crews to climb down into the belly of the sub and start stripping away its metal innards.

As they cut, a crane on one barge will lift the metal out of the submarine and deposit it onto the other barge, he said.

The submarine should start to lift in the water as more and more weight is removed. Eventually workers may be able lift the sub’s “shell” out of the water, Sciaba said, and place it on one of the barges.

From there workers will cut the submarine into pieces and truck it away.

The nonprofit group USS Saratoga Museum Foundation Inc. purchased the submarine in 2002 with the hope that it would draw curiosity seekers to the waterfront and raise money for its efforts to try to berth the decommissioned aircraft carrier Saratoga in Rhode Island waters.

The K-77 was commissioned in 1965 and served in the Soviet Baltic and Northern fleets until its decommissioning in 1994. Later it was reincarnated as a restaurant on the North Sea and was used in the making of the 2002 Harrison Ford film K-19: The Widowmaker.

The foundation operated the Russian Sub Museum for a time but disaster struck in 2007 when water entered the sub’s hatches during a torrential rainstorm and the sub sank.

It spent more than a year at the bottom of the Providence River before Navy and Marine salvage experts helped raise the sub but the damage was too costly to repair, said the museum’s director, Frank Lennon, in December.

Operators of the Russian Sub Museum agreed to hand over the badly deteriorated sub to Rhode Island Recycled Metals earlier this year after determining that it could not be salvaged. During Tuesday’s move, both Collier Point Park and the R.I. Recycled Metals property will be closed to the public.

The submarine weighs about 3,500 tons, Sciaba said. Currently recycled steel is worth about $200 a ton, he said — half the price of a year ago. Steel prices crashed with the rest of the economy when automobile manufacturers stopped producing so many cars and steel mills around the world closed.

[Darrin]

Lance,

she was scrapped a few months ago, it even made the news when part of her caught on fire and had to be put out... It was a sad day to see her sink, her volunteers had put soo much work into her only to see her go under a blue tip torch.

Darrin

[BrokenArrowtiger]

Took a lot of time to scrap her...also sounds like she went down with a fight..