Video: Battleship Texas Being Towed To Drydock

[FlyTexas]

She's in serious need of some TLC, poor girl.
https://youtu.be/g-TOdD2pCko

Brian

[Paul K]

Wonderful to see this after so many years. It's a tribute to those who turned up every morning to patch up the latest leak and pump her out. I hope this dry-dock sets the seal on her future, as she's a historic ship of world importance. I shall be a-visiting, I think.

[Chris Trott]

Have been watching the stream off and on. They're making great time. They were under the Fred Hartman bridge a full 2.5 hours early to give you an idea of how well it's been going.

As I post this, they're about to make the turn into the Galveston Ship Canal and several YouTube and broadcast channels are covering it in addition to the Battleship Texas Foundation's channel.

If you want to see what's going on, they're posting updates on their website and will be posting regular updates during the drydocking and after as she goes to her new home. https://battleshiptexas.org/

[Paul K]

Thanks for the link, Chris.

[blanston12]

I am watching the live stream now, looks like they have her positioned over a floating dry dock but not much is happening, Tug boats are keeping her in place, I would think they would be attaching lines to her to holder in the right spot for when dry dock starts to come up,

[FlyTexas]

And here she is arriving in Galveston, Texas.
https://youtu.be/6_zpf5Nq13s

Brian

[Nigel H-J]

WOW, they don't build them like that any-more. Fantastic!!

Regards
Nigel.

[Paul K]

And to think we could have kept HMS Warspite. Yes, I know all the reasons why we didn't, but still...

Great to see USS Texas safely in the dock. Some people had expressed fears that if her lower hull was so weakened by corrosion, she might not be able to support her own weight once out of the water. As far as I know, she's holding up at the moment.

[FlyTexas]

Wow, look at her! Simply gorgeous, imho.

Many moons ago Mrs. FlyTexas, myself, and our two young sons visited the battleship Texas. While Mrs. FlyTexas and our older son explored the spaces below the main deck, me and our younger son Paul (I'm guessing someone on this forum will appreciate the name ) wondered around on the main deck and the superstructure.

At one point Paul and I were "manning" a quad 40mm Bofors mount...Paul in the seat that raises and lowers the barrels, and yours truly in the seat that rotates the gun mount left and right. While we were playing on the gun mount a Greek ship sailed past. Paul and I stood up and waved to the Greek sailors on the ships deck. The Greek sailors jumped up and down and waved back to us. Cool.

A bit later a Russian ship sailed past. Paul and I again waved to the sailors on deck...and they didn't wave back. That's when I asked Paul to lower the barrels, and I kept the Russian ship securely in my sights as they sailed away.

Serves them right for not waiving back.

Brian

[Chris Trott]

Great to see USS Texas safely in the dock. Some people had expressed fears that if her lower hull was so weakened by corrosion, she might not be able to support her own weight once out of the water. As far as I know, she's holding up at the moment.

According to the Battleship Texas crew, the only real concern was the hull itself (i.e. the steel plating). The structure has always been quite sound and fairly well cared for. Ryan from Battleship New Jersey pointed out on his live stream yesterday afternoon (our time) that all ships are actually built knowing they'll be drydocked and have specific points where the ship will support itself properly out of the water. There's actually plans that are done up as well to go with this that shows the proper arrangement of where the supports go. He also mentioned that the ship will be possibly "bumped" once or twice to allow them to deal with the areas currently sitting on wood blocks and that this is also a fully designed move as well.

The other point he made was that Texas' biggest issue is the Torpedo Blisters and that they've always leaked since installed. Because these don't extend into the bottom of the hull, this means most of the problems are on the bottom edge of the side where it curves under and the sides of the vessel where water stagnated inside the blisters. This is the main point of this drydocking, to deal with the blisters. I'm also hoping that since they're dealing with them, they'll be able to better integrate the monopile interfaces so they don't stick out as much since they might be able to "indent" the blisters or something so that the interfaces don't have to stick out as far or be as "right angled".

Thankfully, the foundation have a full time media crew and will be posting updates throughout the process since they understand how important it is for people to see what's going on, so we'll get to join the journey.