Texas salvage company buys legendary US Navy aircraft carrier for one cent

[turbinetree]

Bob Garcia-Buckalew - 41m ago

It now appears that South Texas will serve as a sort of burial ground for a once-mighty U.S. Navy ship. The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk – named for the place in North Carolina where the Wright brothers flew the first powered airplane – was towed to Texas this week to end its service in a marine salvage yard.

The carrier is a ghost from another era when ships ran on oil and when the world was a much different place since its launching in 1961.

It played an active role in the Vietnam War during the 1960s and '70s, and entered the battle zone again in 2003 when it served as launch pad for fighter jets and helicopters during the Iraq War.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-salvage-company-buys-legendary-us-navy-aircraft-carrier-for-one-cent/ar-AAY3Sih?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=3351d6a56635441ba728fc7b3894de9e

[haele]

1. It will cost a lot to dismantle the Kitty Hawk in an envionmentally safe manner.

The DOD faces close to half a billion in required remediation measures and labor to gut her for sale to a foreign salvage company -or even just to get her ready to sink as a reef. And no foreign company would be willing to cover the cost of remediation and transport for good scrap steel.

Selling her to a US salvage yard ensures environmental regulations are followed, but even then, they will not be seeing a profit from the salvage for a couple years at least.
So yes, since on one wants to turn it into a museum, if the yard is willing to take on the huge front end costs, selling the ship for a penny would be worth it to take it off the hands of the Navy.

Haele

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

USS Kitty Hawk in the Philippine Sea, 2007


Brownsville, Texas, May 31, 2022

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Wow! Really impressive!

My Dad was in the Navy, served on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ranger as radio operator. He had stories, especially about the attempted landing of planes on a moving deck...

[MoonlitKnight]

9. My Dad was also on the Ranger

[Rhiannon12866]

15. Very cool! Wish I could ask my Dad more now, he had so many stories!

[NavyDem]

14. USS Ranger was my first ship

I served aboard Ranger for her last ride, and through her decommissioning (1992-93). After the decommissioning, I cross-decked to the USS Constellation (a Kitty Hawk class Aircraft Carrier). Seems like so long ago now...

[Rhiannon12866]

16. Wow! This is turning out to be quite a coincidence, two on this thread also have ties to the Ranger

My only question is that I'm not sure exactly when my Dad served. He graduated from both high school and college on time - and did not serve during any wars. The experience I remember was that my Dad suffered from painfully uncomfortable "foot fungus" back in the '80s - and the doctor said he must have contracted it when he served in the Navy in the Pacific. But it had been a few decades so I always found it strange that it waited so long to appear.

[keithbvadu2]

4. USS Coral Sea. Fossil burner. Over 60,000 tons. Eight thirsty boilers.

USS Coral Sea. Fossil burner. Over 60,000 tons. Eight thirsty boilers.

Someone in engineering figured that it got 17 feet to the gallon.

That sounds horribly inefficient but could you move 30,000 Toyotas 17 feet on one gallon?

[localroger]

6. It's actually not hard to figure out

Ships are really efficient, but you need the thing they do for that efficiency to be worthwhile. At 40 MPG, a gallon of gas would only propel 30,000 Toyotas about 7 feet. But it would be kind of hard to get the aircraft carrier in my driveway.

[Gore1FL]

8. You'd need at least a two car garage to store it! nt

[localroger]

5. I have heard of "worthless" things selling for $1, but 1 cent seems a bit of an insult

Like that $0.99 is gonna make a difference in the bid spec to salvage the ship?

[jmowreader]

10. Actually...one cent is the standard price in Navy salvage contracts

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

7. Oh NO !!

NOT Miss Kitty !!

Couldn't they have turned her into a museum or something ? Such an ignominious end for such a glorious lady and tenacious fighter.

[jmowreader]

11. First you'd have to find someone who would accept the ship

And considering that most of the Navy calls this CV “Shitty Kitty” because of how fucked up she is, her history as a punishment tour for fuckup sailors, the race riot, the fires, and that it ran over a Soviet submarine…that might be difficult.

[pecosbob]

13. It would cost hundreds of millions

The Battleship Texas is even looking for a new home

[pecosbob]

12. I proudly steamed across the Pacific multiple times with the Kitty Hawk

I was stationed on a destroyer escort based in Pearl at the time and both ships were involved in the rescue of thousands of Vietnamese refugees.