Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
April 10, 2007
Pg. B8
By Patrick McGeehan
The aircraft carrier Intrepid, the floating military museum, is scheduled to move again early today, but this short voyage should be much smoother than the ship’s difficult departure from Manhattan last year.
The Intrepid, which has been tied up at a cruise-ship mooring in Bayonne, N.J., since December, is bound for a two-month stay in an adjacent dry dock. This will be the first time the 41,000-ton ship has been out of water in 30 years, according to Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
A team of tugboats will push the Intrepid to the mouth of the dry dock, a concrete bathtub that is 52 feet deep and about 1,100 feet long, one end of which is removable. After the ship floats in, the removable section will be put back in place and pumps will drain the water.
Once the water is gone and the ship is standing on blocks of concrete and wood, a crew will patch and paint the Intrepid’s 64-year-old steel hull, Mr. White said. They will also remove the ship’s four giant propellers, which got stuck in the Hudson River mud during the first attempt to move the Intrepid in November, he said.
“We’re going to give it an extreme makeover, of sorts, cleaning it, repairing it and fixing it up,” Mr. White said.
The $4.8 million project will not be the last stop on the Intrepid’s leave from its longtime home at Pier 86 on the West Side of Manhattan. From Bayonne, the ship is scheduled to be towed to Staten Island, where its interior spaces will be renovated and new exhibits will be installed while museum officials await the construction of a replacement for Pier 86.
April 10, 2007
Pg. B8
By Patrick McGeehan
The aircraft carrier Intrepid, the floating military museum, is scheduled to move again early today, but this short voyage should be much smoother than the ship’s difficult departure from Manhattan last year.
The Intrepid, which has been tied up at a cruise-ship mooring in Bayonne, N.J., since December, is bound for a two-month stay in an adjacent dry dock. This will be the first time the 41,000-ton ship has been out of water in 30 years, according to Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
A team of tugboats will push the Intrepid to the mouth of the dry dock, a concrete bathtub that is 52 feet deep and about 1,100 feet long, one end of which is removable. After the ship floats in, the removable section will be put back in place and pumps will drain the water.
Once the water is gone and the ship is standing on blocks of concrete and wood, a crew will patch and paint the Intrepid’s 64-year-old steel hull, Mr. White said. They will also remove the ship’s four giant propellers, which got stuck in the Hudson River mud during the first attempt to move the Intrepid in November, he said.
“We’re going to give it an extreme makeover, of sorts, cleaning it, repairing it and fixing it up,” Mr. White said.
The $4.8 million project will not be the last stop on the Intrepid’s leave from its longtime home at Pier 86 on the West Side of Manhattan. From Bayonne, the ship is scheduled to be towed to Staten Island, where its interior spaces will be renovated and new exhibits will be installed while museum officials await the construction of a replacement for Pier 86.
