Navy sells USS Constellation for $3 million
Yet another decommissioned “supercarrier” is coming to the Port of
Brownsville for scrapping, and it’s the biggest one yet.
In fact, the dismantling of the former aircraft carrier USS Constellation
by International Shipbreaking Ltd. will be the largest ship-recycling job to
take place in the United States.
Until the Constellation contract, the former USS Forrestal and the former
USS Saratoga were the largest ships slated for salvaging by a U.S. ship
breaker. The Forrestal arrived in Brownsville to much fanfare in February after
being towed from Philadelphia, and is now being dismantled by All Star Metals.
The Saratoga, decommissioned in 1994, is expected to depart under tow
from Naval Air Station at Newport, Rhode Island, this summer and will be
recycled by ESCO Marine at the Port of Brownsville.
Construction began on the Constellation, the second of the Kitty
Hawk-class of carriers, in 1957 at New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. It was
commissioned in October 1961. The vessel was decommissioned in August 2003 at
the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, then towed to the inactive
ship facility at Bremerton, Wash.
International Shipbreaking is expected to begin towing the 62,000-ton
carrier — nicknamed “Connie” — from Washington in late summer.
Unlike the Navy’s contracts for the Forrestal and the Saratoga, in which
each ship breaker received the symbolic sum of $0.01, the Navy is paying
International Shipbreakers $3 million to take apart the Constellation.
Robert Berry, vice president of the company, said that’s because the
towing distance is much longer — all the way down around the Horn of South
America and up the other side — compared to the other two carriers.
Berry said the trip would take 110 to 125 days and guessed that the
Constellation could dock in Brownsville sometime in December. In contrast, the
Forrestal took only two weeks to get here from Philadelphia.
Berry said the company had just won the contract and was preparing to
visit the ship soon to determine what will be required in terms of rigging and
other matters related to towing.
“We’ll probably have some information to release as we get moving here,”
Berry said.
The Constellation job will take roughly two years to complete, he said,
while declining to estimate how much money the company expects to make from the
salvaged metal. The steel salvaged from the ship may go to mills in Texas,
Mexico or elsewhere around the world, depending on demand, he said.
“We don’t know,” Berry said. “The market changes month to month.”
The recent spike in large vessels coming to the port for dismantling has
led, naturally, to a boost in hiring of workers good with a cutting torch.
Fortunately, such people aren’t hard to come by in Brownsville, Berry said.
“There are quite a few experienced people,” he said. “We’ve been doing
this in the area since the mid- to late ‘60s. A lot of people have gotten
experience at it over the years.”
Berry said the Navy prefers to work with more than one recycling company,
which is why it has contracts with three ship breakers at the port. And with
plenty of other decommissioned carriers awaiting the scrapper’s torch, the
sight of rusty, fading giants gliding down the Brownsville Ship Channel on the
last leg of their final voyage could become increasingly common.
Now that initial recycling contracts have been awarded to each of the
three ship breakers, the Navy said it’s in a position to award additional
contracts for scrapping non-nuclear-powered carriers over a five-year period,
with All Star, ESCO and International Shipbreaking competing against each other
for the work.
After the Constellation is dismantled, the Navy will have four
conventionally powered carriers left: the Kitty Hawk, the Independence and the
Ranger, all at Bremerton; and the John F. Kennedy, moored in Philadelphia.
While the Kitty Hawk is being kept in reserve and the John F. Kennedy
available for donation as a museum/memorial, the Independence and the Ranger
are designated for scrapping.
“They’ll be more carriers coming,” Berry said.
Still, even if they do become a more common sight in Brownsville, he
thinks their arrival will continue to be a pretty big deal — filled with
history and loved by their former crews as they are.
“These carriers are pretty special,” Berry said.
Source: Brownsville Herald. 17 June
2014
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