More on ex-SPIEGEL GROVE (LSD 32)

From: WASP188@aol.com 
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 7:12 AM
Subject: More on ex-SPIEGEL GROVE (LSD 32)

May 31, 2002, Published from Navy Times, 3 June 2002 Issue

Artificial reef almost in place

By Mark Long
Associated Press

MIAMI — The plan was hatched at a local bar in 1994. Leaders of the Key West dive community wanted to procure a retired Navy ship and sink it to create an artificial reef. Simple enough, right?

Eight years, about a dozen delays and more than $1 million later, the idea that turned into an ordeal is close to completion. The final hurdle — getting the Spiegel Grove righted in the water and then rested on the ocean floor — is expected to be finished next week.

Like every step in this ship’s final voyage, sinking the 510-foot vessel hasn’t been easy. “It’s like catching a tiger by the tail,” said Joe Farrell, president of Resolve Marine Group, the Fort Lauderdale-based company hired to finish the project.

The Spiegel Grove sank upside-down May 17 hours before it was to be scuttled as the largest ship ever intentionally sunk to create an artificial reef. The ship is in about 130 feet of water, its stern on the bottom but its bow protruding above the sea six miles off Key Largo.

Divers from the Lana Rose, a 100-foot salvage vessel, have begun attaching giant inflatable lift bags to the ship’s hull, Farrell said. When inflated, the bags — some of which will stand 24 feet high — will provide 500 tons of buoyancy. Divers also will feed air hoses into the ship’s ballast tanks.

The goal is to displace 2,000 tons of water from the left side of the vessel, Farrell said. This must be done without bursting the tanks or pumping air into unintended parts of the ship.

If all goes as planned, the left side will begin to float. Tug boats, and hopefully the strong prevailing current, also will help roll the ship into position.“With enough time and money we were able to put a man on the moon,” Farrell said. “There’s not that kind of budget here, but we still have to prevail. The biggest problem is the size of the ship and the water depth.

There’s a lot of work to be done just to get her ready.“It’s quite a hallenge. ”Spiegel Grove organizers want the ship to come to rest upright so its upper decks approach within 40 feet of the surface. Its nooks and crannies would be visible to snorkelers, and scuba divers of all levels would have something to explore. If the Spiegel Grove just turns on its side, Farrell said he will attach chains to one side of the ship and use hydraulic jacks on barges to turn the vessel upright.

He might have already done that, but he is trying to minimize costs for the already-over-budget reef project. “We’ve been in business about 24 years and we’ve never failed on a job,” Farrell said. “We feel very confident, but I’m being cautious on this one. Nothing is guaranteed. “Is it all going to come together? I know we can eventually do it. There’s no doubt about it.

But will it work given the direction and the procedures that we’re heading? I don’t know. ”The dive industry spent nearly eight years fighting red tape and trying to persuade state, federal and local officials the project would be environmentally sound. The Spiegel Grove, named for President Rutherford B. Hayes’ estate in Fremont, Ohio, and decommissioned in 1989 after service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, was towed last June from the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia to a shipyard in Portsmouth, Va., where cleanup barely began when the contractor ran out of money.

It was moved again in January to Chesapeake, Va., where a new contractor finished the job, removing petroleum products, peeling paint, asbestos and other contaminants. Key Largo officials expect the ship annually to attract 50,000 to 70,000 divers who will spend $14 million in the Keys. The Monroe County Commission has approved the Keys tourism council’s request to pay about half of the more than $1.1 million needed for the cleaning, towing and sinking.

The rest will come from selling commemorative dive medallions. “We know we have a very valuable resource ... the Spiegel Grove will be the best artificial reef in the world,” said Stephen Frink, project organizer and a board member of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce. “We’re going to invest what we have to make this ship right.”
------------------------------------------

Bottoms up! Sinking goes awry

Spiegel Grove takes a turn for the worse

By William H. McMichael

Times staff writer

In the official version of the controlled sinking of the Spiegel Grove on May 17, everything went pretty much as planned — until the ship, which was supposed to land right-side-up to allow access to divers, instead flipped over. It sits partially submerged and upside-down in 130 feet of water off Key Largo, Fla.

That’s still OK, officials say — even though the ship will have to be turned on its side if not flipped over to make it accessible. “It went down exactly in the location that was intended,” states an article on the Web site of the city’s chamber of commerce, which spearheaded the project. That was the good news.

The downside is that the chamber will have to raise and spend about $250,000 to pay Resolve Towing and Diving of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to turn the ship. That’s money that two men who were integrally involved with the $1 million project say shouldn’t have to be spent.

In their minds, the long effort to secure and sink the former Navy landing ship dock to build what is hoped will be the world’s largest artificial reef and a big tourist draw was scuttled when others involved in the project deviated from the sinking plan. “We had a well-laid plan,” said Spencer Slate, a local dive-shop owner who formerly directed the project but has cut ties with the chamber. “It was not an accident.” The plan to sink a retired Navy ship and turn it into an artificial reef was eight years in the making.

Planners settled upon a controlled partial sinking, followed by the detonation of explosives to scuttle it. Planners said this sequence would sink the ship so it would land upright, with its main deck facing toward the surface. Exposing the deck, already cleaned of debris and cut through with access holes, would allow divers to explore the ship safely.

On the morning of May 17, more than 40 welders and cutters were on board to do last-minute work. What happened next depends on whom one believes. Slate said a consultant on the project ordered a worker to open the ship’s rear-most well deck hatch, which already was under a foot of water. Water came flooding in rapidly; according to one report, the ship’s stern slipped 10 feet farther under the surface in five minutes. “The direct action of removing the hatch that had been deemed so critical all week was actually what made the ship sink on the spot,” wrote Ken Normand, a volunteer explosives expert who was in charge of the original sinking plan.

Andy Newman, an official spokesman for the project, said the cause of the premature sinking remains unknown; Newman said he’d heard that a bulkhead down below might have given way. “I’m asking the same questions you are,” he said.

An article on the chamber’s Web site says planned compartment flooding simply let in too much water.. About 9:30 a.m., hours before the sinking was scheduled, news that the ship was going down arrived ashore. Slate, Normand and others headed out to the sinking vessel; they were still several miles away when the workers on board — as well as a county commissioner, according to Slate — scrambled to get off. “They had to step up to get on the tug,” Slate said he was told.

The account posted on the chamber’s Web page gives no indication of calamity, stating, “All 40-plus workers on board the ship left orderly and safely.” No one was hurt. But thousands of dollars of tools were lost — most of them personally owned, since nearly all on board were volunteers.

Some tools have been recovered; Newman said he understands the chamber will replace those that are not, in addition to coming up with the money to right the ship. “It’s not easy,” said Karen Tiedeman, the chamber of commerce president. “We are going to have to borrow additional funds.”

She said the chamber already has received offers of financial assistance and will continue to sell commemorative medallions.
-----------------------------------------------
Submitted,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(Ret)
NCPOA
NAVetsUSA.