gunnergoz Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Ballsy, maybe stupid behavior, but definitely resulted in interesting photos. http://scotthaefner.com/beyond/mothball-fleet-ghost-ships/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalins Organ Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 The mothball fleet is fascinating even from this distance - last year I looked up hte old NS Savannah - the civilian nuclear powered freighter - through Google Earth - I remember reading a NatGeo article about it some tiem in the 60's about how it was he way forward, etc & wondered what had happened to it - found its location & a nice overhead shot. Anyway - cute though the blog is, the ships are obviously NOT all supposed to be ready to re-enter service at a moment's notice - the "best" are on 20-120 days notice, and many of them are set to be scrapped with no intention of maintaining them to any standard at all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted June 16, 2011 Author Share Posted June 16, 2011 Years ago I was fortunate to be able to go on a former mothball fleet ship, the all-original Essex class CV Bunker Hill, when it was brought down to San Diego's North Island Naval Air Station to be a test bed for antenna arrays for the then-new Nimitz class carriers. When I visited the ship there were still Plan of the Day copies dated 1945 pinned to the cork boards and blankets and pillows in the captain's day cabin. 5" and 40mm brass shell cases were propping open some of the passageway hatches. Most of the 40mm mounts were still there under cocoons and the 5" mounts were open and I got to rummage around in one. The Chief of the Boat gave me the cover for the ships speed and distance indicator from the bridge as a souvenir...unfortunately, I had to sell it years later but it had a nice brass plaque marked "Bendix Instruments, USS Bunker Hill, CV-17." When they scrapped her instead of making her a museum I was really upset about it. Years later San Diego go the Midway for a museum, but I think the BH would have been far more interesting, if not even more deserving of the honor than the Midway (no disrespect to the latter intended). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Link has died now. Hope the guys didn't get hit with anything too legal. When i checked it out this morning I was kind of amazed that they were trying to sell prints of the photos. There would definitely be some issues with that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmar Bijlsma Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 I think he mostly got hit with the internet. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Would getting caught be such a big deal? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 Link has died now. It's working again. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 Would getting caught be such a big deal? You'd have to ask the local federal prosecutor and see what he/she felt about the matter. Potentially, yes, if they elected to throw the book at the suspects. Prosecutions and trials cost a lot of money for the government to pursue, so they'd possibly offer the defendant(s) a plea deal like trespassing on a government reservation: but you never know how that will turn out because federal judges can be pretty severe too. In any event, they'd have at minimum a federal arrest on their record and that is seldom salutary to one's career prospects unless one has an outlaw career in mind. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.