Another new reef in Florida

[Guba]

Just saw this morning that the Vandenberg is being towed to its cleaning station so that it can be reefed in 2008. (This may be old news, but I just got the memo today.) I've been looking forward to this one. It's a ship that was a troop carrier before being refitted as a missle tracker for Atlantic duty during the space race years.
Does anyone know whether the huge radar dishes will be left intact for the reefing? It should make a pretty dynamic wreck and it will certainly be unique.

 

[El Orans]

Guess what?

It has even got its own forum...

 

[mike_s]

Does anyone know whether the huge radar dishes will be left intact for the reefing? It should make a pretty dynamic wreck and it will certainly be unique.

I don't know for sure, but I read somewhere that they were going to have remove some of the dishes so they had so many feet (65 or so) from the surface clearance.


Edit: I did some searching for something that says what they will do on the dishes, and it Looks like they might leave the dishes.

from: http://www.bigshipwrecks.com/diving/drawings/liberty.htm

The keel will lie on sand and hardbottom at 140'. The 10'x30' crow's nest platform and the dish antennas will be only 40' from the surface. Most of the deck structures will be at 50'-90'. 7'x10' holes will offer access to the top 4 decks. 18 stair towers, elevator shafts, and cargo hold shafts will offer vertical access.






There was a story in the news on Wednesday about transfer of ownership.
http://www.keynoter.com/articles/2007/02/14/news/news10.txt

 

[Guba]

Yeah, EO....but as I said, the memo I got was that it was being towed this week, not just that it was destined to be a reef. I was simply commenting on the fact that things were moving forward. I didn't see that in the existing thread, the latest addition to which was over a month old. Sorry that threads like this are a bother, but I just thought others in the general discussion group would like to know.

 

[Mooring Inspector]

Hot off the press. The Vandenberg is on its way to the shipyard as we speak, I got a call from a little bird up in the James River. The ship is to get a haircut and the radar dishes will be repositioned minus all the turning gear, at deck level. I was up there walking her decks and exploring the engine rooms and shaft tunnel etc this time last year with the Reefmakers Team and the boys from the shipyard. There is alot of work to do to meet the standards before deployment in 08. This is going to be an awesome dive. Look out for announcements.