Fruits of Preservation 3

Here were the first two installments of this series.  And what prompts this post is the news yesterday about a $200 million structure in the assembly stages just four years ago.  Click on the image below to see the post I did just four years ago.

It will be scrapped as announced yesterday here.  The physical disassembled parts will be sold as will portions of it non-fungible tokens (NFTs), whatever they are;  I can’t quite understand them even after reading this.  Doesn’t that sound like eating your cake and still having it?

You can’t save everything . . . as the next two photos from Tony A show . . . relative to the 1907 Pegasus. For comparison, check out Paul Strubeck’s thorough cataloging of the many lives of Pegasus through the many years. 

Here’s the engine that powered Pegasus for many years, originally from Landing Ship Tank, LST 121 , which itself lived only three years before being scrapped and the engine transplanted into Pegasus.

The next two photos come thanks to Steve Munoz.  The 1945 USS Sanctuary (AH-17) looked shabby here in Baltimore harbor in 1997;  it last until 2011, when it was scrapped in Brownsville, TX, then ESCO and now SteelCoast. 

Another photo from Steve shows SS Stonewall Jackson, a Waterman LASH vessel in the Upper Bay;  note the Staten Island ferries off the stern.    Scroll through and see Jackson on the beach in Alang in 2002.  Tug Rachel will arrive in Brownsville with Lihue, a very smiliar LASH vessel within a week;  she’s currently approashing the strait between Mexico and western Cuba.

Here’s a photo I took of the beautiful NS Savannah;  a recent MARAD public comment period on what should be done with her ended less than a month ago;  I’m not sure when the results will be publicly commented on.   

Sometimes preserved vessels change hands, as is the case with the 1936 Eagle, another photo from Steve Munoz taken in 1992.  

More on this tomorrow.  Many thanks to Tony and Steve for use of these photos.

Ship preservation is tough and costly.  Turning an almost-new metal structure into NFTs . . . just mind boggling.