Thanks to Barrel 13

Barrel comes up with unusual photos . . . and this one below,  Merritt,  shows a side-cast dredge with a draft of less than 5′.

It appears she’s still in use.

 

Here’s the info.

I wish that tree was not obscuring the tug, but the real star here is the ship, an oddity that began life in the last years of the nineteenth century as a battleship, BB-5.   The first in her class was USS Indiana, BB-1. 

After 20 years as a battleship, she was idled for 20 years, at which point she was converted into arcane ship, Crane Ship No. 1, with lifting capacity of 250 tons, a weight more impressive then than now.  It does qualify this as a “second lives” post, though.  Finally, in 1955, she was sold as scrap.

Click here for navsource’s great photo documentation–including the dramatic graving dock view below– of her entire half century career.

Here’s a 1936 derrick boat, with a sign over the stern house that would get my attention.

I’m not sure when she went out of service.

Many thanks to barrel for these glimpses into the archives.