James River Reserve Fleet
Sunday, 10th July 2005 by
Here is the Jmes River Reserve Fleet, much like the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet we spotted previously. It's a collection of really old (and big) ships that are just hanging around with no place to go. Most of them probably contain asbestos and other nasty chemicals so disposing of them would be rather expensive.
Thanks: Alex, Nathan, Brad, Corey Ehmke, Ken Adams, Jesse, Braz, Jim Absher, Stephen & RJ Marquette.
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so they just wait for something to make them sink and call it an “accident”?
Heres some B/W satellite pictures of all 3 Remaining Ready Reserve Fleet Sites… James River, Suisun Bay and Beaumont, TX.. not sure how old they are..
Woops Here they are http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/dod.htm#rf
They actually use the spare parts on these ships for repairs, etc. for the current ones. Or that is what I was told by a tour guide. Seems it is actually cheaper getting spare parts this way then actually newly manufacturing them.
I wonder how much that Aircraft carrier would cost me? i got coupons!
and check this one out in the delta of the Bay Area on the West Coast:
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I do believe they intend on towing them over here to old blighty and dispoing of them here, but the locals have kicked up a fuss, so you may be stuck with them.
Dom did you forget to click link to page?
I think Dom meant here:
View Placemark
W
oops sorry. thanks Will…
Actually we pretty much are stuck with them. US environmental regulations keep us from exporting them to 3rd world countries for disposal, and its too expensive to dismantle them here. They’re not used for anything, they just sit there rotting and leaking.
Recently the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany was pulled from the MARAD fleet in Beaumont and sank of the coast of Florida as an artificial reef.
It brings a tear to my eye when I view the ignominious end of so many noble and gallant ladies. After all, a ship is just not a “ship”. It is your domicile…it is your reality…it is your life. A mariner bonds with her. Asleep…off-watch…when a course change is made, or an engine-order has been transmitted…you are instantly awake. “Something” has changed. It is the finest and best alarm clock ever invented! A mariner becomes “one” with his vessel. He grows to know every “creak and Groan” of his Lady. He realizes that She must be nurtured and loved. For only in that loving and nurturing, can a sailor hope to be kept from the “wilderness and nothingness” that is the greatest “desert”…Mother Ocean. I miss the Sea so very much. Chief Mate, Unlimited. (ret.)
“The Sea is so very slow at recognition of effort and diligence…but, oh so very quick to sink the unfit”
I wish you all “Fair Winds and Following Seas!”
If properly equipped some of these ships could easily prevent the formation of a hurricane. They should be outfitted with powerful industrial strength blowers athwartship port and starboard and high volume pumps. Most of the earths water is barely above freezing; there is plenty of cold water to spray. In the beginning stage a hurricane is nothing but a rising column of warm humid air, rotated by the coriolis force. This is when monitoring ships can attack; sailing back and forth many times with powerful blowers and pumps spraying cold water from deep below to upset the relatively weak early forming hurricane. It must be done. There it is moving very slowly toward the East coast. Go get it! Don’t wait for it to get you. Remember Katrina! Remember New Orleans! Sail down the James River, past Newport News, under the Chesapeke Bay Bridge and on out to attack and attack again and again upsetting the newly named small hurricane. It is rediculous for the most powerful navy in the world to remain helpless before a hurricane while island populations and coastal cities are ravaged. Our government should do for the people what the people cannot so well do for themselves. (visit: http://www.superwindstorm.com)
WELL I THINK SOME OF THE COMMENTS ARE STUPID. MY NAVY SHIP. ORION AS 18 WAS JUST SCAPED NOT NOG AGO. SHE WAS IN SERVICE ALMOST 50 YEARS. WE KEEP LETTING THESE SHIPS GO AND ONE DAY WE WILL WISH WE HAD THEM.
Big O, I was on the Orion for 3 years, IC R-3 Div, just before she left Norfolk 1970 until 73, went to skool, and came back to CHS aboard the Sierra AD-18
My Brother was in R-3 Sound Shop Mickey (Charles) McLeod, did you know either of us
The reserve fleet ships were used at one time to store the vast surplus of grain produced by this country and at great expense I might add. I just wonder if this practice continues to this day?? Grain was being stored in the cargo holds, of ships at three reserve fleet points on the east coast and two on the west back in the late 50’s. Was said to keep for four to five years in storage this way. Was estimated the cost to store grain in these vessels was $25,000 a day in the mid 50’s.