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From: nuchat!steve@uunet.UU.NET (Steve Nuchia)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Battleships: where are they now?
Message-ID: <1990Oct1.022012.2929@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 1 Oct 90 02:20:12 GMT
References: <1990Sep24.001114.22188@cbnews.att.com>
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Organization: Houston Public Access
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From: nuchat!steve@uunet.UU.NET (Steve Nuchia)

In article <1990Sep24.001114.22188@cbnews.att.com> jimcat@rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak) writes:
>and I heard that the USS Texas is located somewhere near Houston. Are

Texas reopened to the public last month after over a year of desperately
needed maintenence work.  They dry docked her (at Todd, in Galveston)
and replaced every spot on the hull that had less than 3/4 inch of steel,
then painted her with modern bottom paint, good for 20-30 years.  The
last time the bottom was painted was in '48, with 2-year paint, and
she was a mess.  Nothin but rust, held on rusted frames, in some spots.

Her berth, adjacent to the place Sam Houston's army camped the night
before the last battle of the Texas war for independence, was widened
and deepened, and she now rides on a unique permanent "monopile" mooring
system designed to hold her fast in hurricanes.

They've stripped off the concrete that had fouled her decks and a huge
crew of patio deck carpenters put in a deck of 4x4 pine.  Not teak, but
it beats concrete.  The Texas parks department curatorial staff has
decided that she was dark blue during the pacific battles in '45, and
that's the paint scheme they've restored her to.  Nobody can figure
out what made them decide that, but it is a nice looking paint job.

The Navy, in addition to a $5 million grant to help with the drydock
expenses, has coughed up replacement 40mm mounts, original light
fixtures, and stuff like that.  The curators are going so far as to
locate the exact spot the wire clips rusted off the overheads to
restore the lighting circuits exactly.  Compartments never before
open to the public are being opened.

Visitors now board her at the fantail, she's floating instead of
resting in mud, her topsides are wood again ...  Considering that
if we'd waited another year she probably could not have been moved
at all, she looks pretty good for a 75 year old ship.

Texas isn't the only battleship on public display, but she is the
only WWI battlewagon and was the trend-starter, at least in the states.
Not a bad destination if one is interested in visiting a battleship
on one's vacation.  Houston isn't exactly the garden spot of the subtropics,
but it isn't too bad in the fall.

-- 
Steve Nuchia	      South Coast Computing Services      (713) 964-2462
"To learn which questions are unanswerable, and _not_to_answer_them;
this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness."
		Ursula LeGuin, _The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness_