The U.S.S Cape Cod

W

Wallkerbay

New member
The U.S. Navy ship was towed out of the James River Ghost Fleet on wednesday 7 march. The ship was built in SanDiego Ca. at The National Steel and Ship building co. in 1979 to 1982. I did my first west Pacific cruise on that ship. it was a destroyer Tender. It will be scraped in Brownsvill Texas. Full :cry: name. U.S.S. Cape Cod (AD-43). Fare Well and Followig seas.
 
Neal, I know the feeling. I've been shaving with the old ships I served on for many years. The scrapping process in Brownsville is interesting, they dig a trench on the beach, drag the ship as far in as they can and turn loose the ship breakers. As the ship gets lighter, it's towed/pushed in more until it is gone. They've done small carriers that way too, cheaper/easier than putting them in a graving dock.

They use primarily "local" labor and I'd bet if someone went in and hollered "green card", it'd look like a ghost town. They aren't much bothered by folks looking at asbestos or PCBs either although all of that is SUPPOSED to be removed prior to the scrapping.

Lots of ships left in that GREY FLEET there, also in Philadelphia, Suison Bay in CA and in a few other obscure places. I sure hope once we get rid of them, we never wished we hadn't. Takes ~5 years to build if a design is pretty mature, ~10 if it's not.

Charlie
 
Brownsville is pretty close to our home port. We make a run through the Port of Brownsville on occasion. The scrapping process is pretty interesting, as Charlie describes it. A lot of that scrap metal goes to Mexico. Besides military ships, there are cargo and occasionally old passenger ships that come to an end there. It is a big business.
 
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