Charting a course for Patriots Point
Jul 29, 2010
Charting a course for Patriots Point
BY JOHN HAGERTY
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Since the Fall of 2008, Patriots Point has received significant news coverage as a result of the near sinking of the historic WWII destroyer, the USS Laffey. The coverage has helped to focus public attention on one of this state's greatest assets and its potential for educating future generations about the feats and sacrifices of the country's military heroes.
A central motivation for the men and women who accept the challenge of serving as Patriots Point Development Authority members is a solemn appreciation for the historical significance of the ships that make up the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum. Maintaining these ships so that the public may appreciate them in a dignified manner is a goal that orients authority decisions.
In addition to the ships, the authority must also manage the remainder of the assets with which the state has entrusted it and act responsibly with an eye towards Patriots Point's financial situation as a whole. Discussions with fellow members of the Historic Naval Ships Association have provided insight into why most other naval museums have focused on one ship. The reason is money. A naval and maritime museum must be willing and able to pay to maintain its ships. In spite of the personal, emotional and patriotic reasons to want to acquire and keep every ship the authority can acquire, the authority must be realistic about the financial requirements of keeping ships.
Hindsight is often perfect vision. The ships are wasting assets. It all boils down to two things: oxidation and depreciation. Each ship needs to be dry docked every 10 to 15 years for hull repair, painting, and other maintenance to preserve and protect it against the elements. The current maintenance needs of the three ships are not new developments. They have been accumulating since each ship was acquired. In a perfect world, as each ship was acquired, a maintenance fund would have been established with enough money going into each fund annually to pay for the periodic dry docking and maintenance as needed. No such funds were established, but the need for the maintenance did not go away. For the Laffey, that need peaked at the end of 2008.
When the Laffey was last dry-docked in 1995, a less than optimum method of hull repair was used and did not last. In late 2008, the hull was in such a state of disrepair that the Laffey was in danger of sinking in its berth. The authority had three options: 1) allow the Laffey to sink in place, 2) repair the Laffey to the degree necessary to pull the ship out to sea and scuttle it as a memorial reef, or 3) dry-dock the Laffey and repair it to seaworthy condition. Allowing the Laffey to sink in place would have cost the most. In addition to the cost of repairing the Laffey, the additional costs of a salvage operation and an extensive environmental cleanup would have been incurred. The total cost was estimated at between $20 million and $25 million.
The second most expensive alternative was scuttling the Laffey as a memorial reef. The estimated cost to repair the Laffey to the degree necessary to safely pull her out to sea to become a memorial reef was $8.5 million plus the cost of removing environmentally hazardous materials including PCB's and asbestos. The total cost to reef the Laffey was estimated to be approximately $16 million. The least expensive and most palatable alternative was the $9.2 million to dry-dock the Laffey for repairs. The dry-dock repairs took care of the hull from the keel to the 13-foot water line. Authority personnel have been completing repairs from the deck to the top of the stacks since the ship left dry-dock. Those repairs are not yet complete. When the repairs are complete, the Laffey will be in good shape. In the meantime, the authority must decide what to do with the Laffey.
The Post and Courier editorial noted that a reasonable expectation was to put the Laffey back in its prior berth. The authority would love for the decision to be so simple. The authority appreciates that the public wants to come view the ship, but bringing the Laffey back to Patriots Point is not as straightforward as tugging the ship back and tying it up. The authority cannot just place the Laffey back inside the marina.
The existing mooring structure does not meet current heavy weather regulations and there is too much potential for damage to other vessels in the case of a hurricane. The original estimated cost to remove the Laffey from and return it to the marina was $180,000. The actual cost to remove sections of the marina, clear obstructions and replace the sections of the marina exceeded $700,000. The cost to return the Laffey to the marina berth would exceed $400,000 plus approximately $600,000 for construction of two new mooring dolphins necessary to meet the requirements to safely moor the Laffey in the marina.
If the Laffey cannot be safely moored in the marina so that it can weather a hurricane, it should not be moored there. Two options are to construct the necessary mooring dolphins and piers to moor the Laffey on the port (harbor) side of the Yorktown, or on the starboard side of the Yorktown's bow. Another, recommended by engineers and the AECOM master planning team, is to replace a segment of the existing pier with a removable pier segment so the Laffey and the Clamagore can both be moored on the landside of the existing pier with the ability to remove them for dry-docking. This option resolves the problem of the Clamagore having been land-locked many years ago, and also makes both vessels more visible and accessible. It also creates a safe berth for the Laffey. It is the most cost-efficient option, and resolves two less than optimum mooring decisions made long before the current Authority was appointed. All of these options involve capital expenditures of millions of dollars.
The authority decided to rent space to moor the Laffey on a temporary basis to give the authority adequate time to consider the Laffey's options and make a prudent decision. Since repairs are continuing to be made to the Laffey, even if the Laffey was back at Patriots Point, it would be a hard-hat work zone and would not be open to the public. Further, decisions about the Laffey cannot be made in a vacuum. Bringing the Laffey back to Patriots Point means incurring the costs of regular maintenance, including additional dry-dock visits every fifteen years, all while the Yorktown and Clamagore sit in the background in need of significant infusions of capital.
When the authority acquired the Yorktown, Navy personnel helped sink the ship in the mud where it now rests. The storm surge from Hugo moved the Yorktown slightly, but otherwise, it is securely lodged in 27 or so feet of mud. The Navy now knows better than to sink ships in mud. Museum ships are now required to float so they can be moved to dry dock. Hindsight again tells us that the Yorktown needed to be dry-docked in the early '90s and likely again now. In the early '90s, the authority easily could have spent $30 million or more on dry-dock and repair costs on the Yorktown and the number has grown since. We know that within the last couple of years, over $100 million was spent on the aircraft carrier museum ship Intrepid. The cost to dry-dock the Yorktown would certainly exceed the $100 million spent on the Intrepid.
The authority is trying to weigh the various options for the Yorktown, including building a coffer dam around the Yorktown similar to the one constructed around the battleship Alabama.
Not to be ignored, the submarine Clamagore needs an estimated $3.5 million of dry-dock repair and maintenance work.
Visitor studies have shown that the primary draw for most of the people who come to Patriots Point is the Yorktown and that the Clamagore and Laffey are distant second and third draws respectively. While the authority would like to keep and display as many historically significant ships as possible, it must consider the impacts of each vessel on the authority's assets and liabilities.
Lining up the authority's assets next to its liabilities highlights the potential value of the authority's 450 acres on the Charleston Harbor. A master plan for the property is in development and the authority is confident that the land will eventually provide the capital to repay the state's loan and funds to provide for the ship maintenance. However, until that process is complete and the land begins to produce larger revenue streams, the authority will continue to balance providing the public with a meaningful interpretive experience with guarding the Authority's financial well-being.
The present question facing the authority has little to do with the money already spent on the Laffey, the smallest amount the authority could have spent to rectify the problem and an amount that had to be spent to avoid significantly greater liability and expenditures.
The challenge is to fully assess the costs associated with keeping each of the ships and the realistic income the authority can expect from its assets through implementation of the new master plan.
With this information, the authority, in consultation with the appropriate state officials in Columbia, must make prudent decisions about how to spend its limited resources to achieve its mission.
The authority appreciates the public's patience while it charts and navigates a prudent course for its future.
John Hagerty is chairman of the Patriots Point Development Authority.
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During the 2005-2006 school year over 32,100 students from the South Carolina Lowcountry and other parts of the country participated in Patriots Point education programs.
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