Vandenberg In Political Trouble?

[mike_s]

What's sad is that the last two attempts to sink ships in the keys have been utter screwups from the start.

Because of this, you'll see banks being hesitant to be willing lend the funds to other "sinking organizations" in the future for sinking new ships in the Keys. I mean the past two sinkings of the Grove and Vandenberg have gone way over time schedule and budget and have both had huge screwups.

The ship held about 2.9 million pounds of waste oil and fuel that had to be disposed of.

wow... I'm surprised they left all of that in the ship while it was in the ghost fleet in fears that a tank might rupture and cause a large leak that would negatively affect the environment. I mean you don't store "old oil" in a tank on a ship for 24 years and just hope it doesn't leak.

 

[canadianreefer]

Would it be correct that some other diving community could (also) now come in and scoop up the Vandenberg for a really sweet deal since Monroe County has paid the bulk of clean-up but lost their "rights" to the ship.

You are very correct on this point.

Frankly it would serve some people well for this to happen....their lack of political courage on this project has been very disappointing. If another community scooped it and reaped hte benefits it would be a good economic/political lesson for the future.

The problem is that there are a lot of good people in the dive industry and the community that would get badly burned by this. They do not diserve that.

 

[Johnoly]

Would it be correct that some other diving community could (also) now come in and scoop up the Vandenberg for a really sweet deal since Monroe County has paid the bulk of clean-up but lost their "rights" to the ship.

You are very correct on this point.

Maybe, but probably not. Couple of reasons

* In June the Governor signed senate bill 432 into law. This effectively places the entire Ships-2-Reefs program under the authority of the FWC. If you now want to sink a ship, you must go through FWC not only for permitting, but they also will act as custodian for all the funding. This takes control away from the counties, towns and private groups. There is a provision in the law for FWC to match private funds, but I don't have to tell you that outcome on a case by case basis for that.

* As I've mentioned before, scrap steel prices are at record highs and that ship weighs 14,000 tons. It could be worth anywhere from 6-9 million dollars. The bidding will probably come in at half since labor and processing costs will be needed to cut it up.

* The Navy 'Donated' the ship to be sunk for the public good, not to make a profit on. If they wanted to do that, they would have sold the ship for scrap by themselves and allocated the proceeds for their own budget.

It will be a very long time before a major shipwreck is sunk in Florida unless it is fully funded before the Navy releases it.

 

[canadianreefer]

Between now and the middle of December we will fid out which theory is correct.

 

[truck1]

What's sad is that the last two attempts to sink ships in the keys have been utter screwups from the start.

Because of this, you'll see banks being hesitant to be willing lend the funds to other "sinking organizations" in the future for sinking new ships in the Keys. I mean the past two sinkings of the Grove and Vandenberg have gone way over time schedule and budget and have both had huge screwups.




.

I think part of the reason the Spiegle and now the Vandenberg are having some many cost over runs is that there are unanticipated costs. For the V it is the cost of fuel for the tow and now apparently the extra oils and fuel still onboard. Among other things. I wonder now that the price of oil has gone down, if the tow cost fuel which was a major factor,has decreased?

For the SG it was the changeing rules that came seemingly on a daily basis. The Oriskanny had some of the same problems where the contractor asks the govt what do you want me to do? They are told ABCD. They plan accordingly. Now all of a sudden there are almost done and now a different govt orginaization says oh yeah btw, you need to do xyz. That costs money. The program is stilll so new that it is almost a ship by ship basis as opposed to a set of solid rules that say you will do ABC 123 and you are done.

Maybe, but probably not. Couple of reasons


* The Navy 'Donated' the ship to be sunk for the public good, not to make a profit on. If they wanted to do that, they would have sold the ship for scrap by themselves and allocated the proceeds for their own budget.

It will be a very long time before a major shipwreck is sunk in Florida unless it is fully funded before the Navy releases it.

The Navy has repeatedly said it is cheaper to give the ship up for donation or for reefing, than it is to try and sell it for scrap.

As far as the Navy releasing a ship for reefing after it is fully funded, I dont think that will happen until someone writes up a infallible plan that applies to every ship. There are too many govt orginizations that have there hands in the pot to screw up the works.

I think that maybe MARAD which is the Navy custodial arm of the Ghost Fleets, and whom one of the CO's is caught on camera saying they drain all of the fuel and oils should come up with the money to pay for the oils and fuels that prob should not have been there to begin with.

 

[Buoyant1]

That was an old trip based on the planned deployment at that time and before the latest SNAFU delayed the project.

It would appear the current planned deployment date is planned for Saturday, January 17, 2009. At this point, I am not sure what the Vegas odds are of it going down on that date though...

heck...if I WERE a betting man I'd bet against this at this point!

MID January, huh? heck I can't even stretch out a potential vacation (since Penn State MAY have a shot in the national championship game) THAT long!

Guess next year is in order!

Oh well...the SG, Duane, Thunderbolt, Eagle and Busch are good enough for me at the end of the month!

 

[americanreefer]

I do not know who came up with a story about everyday changing rules on the Spiegel Grove. The original contractor that was supposed to clean and prep the Spiegel Grove was deemed to be a crook (and is by default, he does not really mean to be). The Guy who started actually cleaning the SG was a crook (Ocean Reefs), and could think of nothing other than getting his next ship, while having his crew strip everything of value and not working in the direction of making it a reef, then trying to get MARAD to cough up more money to clean the tanks (oh, and by the way, he came from the first guy they were dealing with, so should have already had the crooked taint). The SG was underfunded to start, and $268,000 was simply not enough money to make it happen.
When it looked as though the SG was going back to the fleet as a failure, a final contractor stepped in, and completed the project, in spite of the Volunteer Project Manager from Key Largo, for just short of $500K (a month was spent just making the ship safe enought to go back to work on).
It is a shame that the volunteer PM relied on a couple of retired captains, one navy, one USCG, to do the sinking, because as I have learned, a good dose of common sense can be much better than an engineering degree for sinking boats, and huge egos are always a bad thing when sinking a boat for a reef, but in comparison to the Vandenberg, even with the screw up on the SG, they got a bargain.

I have made many reef myself, and no matter how I do the math, I cannot figure out how the Vandenberg got so out of control, but if I had any position of authority over it, I would have auditors looking real hard at where the money went. 50,000 man hours at $50 a man hour is only $2.5 million, and the crap about fuel costs is just that, crap. The Vandenberg also had more than $2 million in copper, brass, and other non-ferrous metals onbaord that were removed and sold for scrap, at the peak of the market, where is that money in the mix of things? It is a real shame when a reef project goes this way, because it only makes it harder foir the guys that make reefs every day to get their job done, as they now face extra scrutiny from the "amateurs", that have the snappy name, the great bumper stickers, the nice t-shirts, and the website that is always on the top of the search engines, while burying any negative story. I just hope it ends up on a reef somewhere and does not get scrapped

 

[trtldvr]

...I have made many reef myself...

What reefs, and where?

 

[americanreefer]

Cape May/wildwood area: Hooters Boat, Lady Dee, Kings Point, Goodship Lollipop, Georgia Moran, A tank barge I cannot remember the name of
Off Atlantic City Tugboats AJ McAllister and Yatanocos
Off Manasquan Bay King and Megan Sue
Sank the Bay Jack and some others off NJ, including YO-153(160' coastwise tanker)
At redbird reef in Delaware tugboat Margaret, yog-93 (180 Foot Coastwise Tanker) William Snow, cittie point, swift, fells point, YR-89
At the Deljersyland reef site was the Gregory Poole (180' manhaden boat)
At Chesapeake light Swan Point(renamed JB Eskridge, after a deceased member of the state artificial reef crew)
In coastal Carteret county there was the Spar (nice bouy tender made into an even nicer reef), the Titan, a Big old McAllister Tug
Out by frying pan shoal light tower was the Capt. Greg MicKey, which was originally the Coastal Mariner, a 180' menhaden boat
out off brunswick county, mouth of cape fear river was the Admiral Charlie and an old navy tug that I cannot remember the name of, maybe the Saugatuck
Off South Carolina Off Charleston a ways, was the big old McAllister tug Titan
Off georgia (Commanche reef I believe, off savannah) was the Barbara McAllister and RiedMcAllister
And out off, but just below a bit, brunswick Georgia, was the Vincent Turecamo

I have forgetten a handfulof the boats, and their locations, but this covers most of the completed to date reefing projects, I am working on a number of others, have deployed hundreds of reef balls, and am getting ready to deploy several thousand tons of concrete pipe in the coming weeks

 

[ReefHound]

* As I've mentioned before, scrap steel prices are at record highs and that ship weighs 14,000 tons. It could be worth anywhere from 6-9 million dollars. The bidding will probably come in at half since labor and processing costs will be needed to cut it up.

I have a friend who works in the business and says scrap prices have fallen sharply in just the last two months. The bottom has completely fallen out of the steel market. We were talking about it in regards to the Vandenburg and he was explaining why he thinks scrapping it won't happen.