Legendary aircraft carrier USS Saratoga to sail off to scrapyard in 1-cent deal

The USS Saratoga — the legendary aircraft carrier that played a key role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and Gulf wars and made Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi back down — is destined for dismantling after the Navy paid one penny to a Texas firm to recycle the 81,101-ton behemoth.

The once-mighty vessel is the second of three conventionally-powered carriers to set to sail to the scrapyard, following another one-cent deal involving the USS Forrestal in October. ESCO Marine, of Brownsville, will pay to tow, dismantle and recycle the ship, which was decommissioned in 1994 after more than 38 years of service. Efforts to spare the ship failed, as they did with the Forrestal last year.

“[It is] emotional in that we who served on ‘Sara’ feel that our ‘surrogate mother’ is passing from our lives,” Sammy King, secretary of the USS Saratoga Association, told FoxNews.com in an email. “We owe her a lot. We went aboard as ‘snot-nosed kids’ and left as ‘men.’ Some of us are very sad and some are very angry at the decision to scrap her.”

I always find it sad when a legendary ship is put out to pasture. It is very emotional for the men and women who served on her and I can understand why. I like the quote from Sammy King which sort of sums up the sad day for those that served aboard the old carrier.

Godspeed, Saratoga.

Source

a reply to: Metallicus

What gets me is the 1 cent thing!

If I have a car and it breaks down and isn't worth fixing, I get it to a "Scrap Yard" and get paid a minimum of $300!!!! Just depends on the prices at the time....

Now as broke as this country is, why can't the government recycle it and break it down for scrap????

1 cent????

Hell! How about using it as a homeless shelter??????

Most old ships are being scrapped because they're outdated PoSs that are a complete nightmare to maintain.
I doubt many whos served on it will be sorry to see her go.

a reply to: seeker1963

It costs a poop ton of money to scrap these old girls. The environmental regulations alone are crazy expensive.

Things sure are different today. One of the ships that I was on in the Navy was sold for scrap in 1995.... the Navy got $268,707 for her.

Link

Would have been better sold to an ally for 1 cents

US contractors could have secured a big fat pay off refitting and upgrading her

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: Metallicus

What gets me is the 1 cent thing!

If I have a car and it breaks down and isn't worth fixing, I get it to a "Scrap Yard" and get paid a minimum of $300!!!! Just depends on the prices at the time....

Now as broke as this country is, why can't the government recycle it and break it down for scrap????

1 cent????

Hell! How about using it as a homeless shelter??????

The cost just to keep this thing sitting in port in very large, to move it even more expensive. It is full of asbestos and other things that make it a danger in the state its in. To clean all that out also costs a great deal of money. In the US one town in Texas has the 8 companies that are certified for this work. They pay to clean it out and dispose of the waste and tow it so they can sell the scrap for a small profit. It is possible with much lower wages we could make some money selling it to salvage companies outside of the US but for reasons of national security it is against the law. Often ships are just sunk to become reefs. At least this way some of the material is used again.

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: Metallicus
1 cent????

Hell! How about using it as a homeless shelter??????

Great idea.

I love out of the box thinking like that! Star for you!

It'd be more of a hazard than a help even for the homeless, at this point. They are probably getting more than the one cent, the rest going into the same fund the extra $390 goes to from $400 hammers. But yeah, we're saving a lot in the expense of transport, breaking down, etc. as was mentioned.

Hell, we could sell it to the Russians for a ton of cash.......they only have one or two mini carriers.....
It would make the war in the Ukraine much more entertaining....think of the ratings CNN would get then!

Just like they did with the USS Forestall last year. There is a ton of liability, risk and costs to scrap something of this size. As I said in the other thread I hope they strip it of contaminants and turn it into a reef like the USS Oriskany. Anyway here is the previous thread.
ATS

At current copper prices, that's probably about right.

a reply to: Metallicus

This kind of thing is alway's sad but technology does not stand still and there comes a time when crewing a venerable old ship places her crew at risk, especially when most are younger than the ship they serve on, Aircraft carriers in there current configuration are really dinosaurs with new technology such as drone carriers around the corner but I personally think that manned aircraft will alway's have a place in operational theatre and so there will alway's be a manned aircraft carrier for some use somewhere.
I know how you feel as I felt like that when the ark royal was decomissioned, though she was tiny compared to this great ship.
These day's it takes such a large fleet of ships to provide a curtain to protect the carriers and with modern technology the size and capability of that curtain is being pushed to extremes but cruise missile launching and drone launching smaller more numerous vessels costing less than these old vessels can project superior fire power even though from a public relations point of view they are not as effective.
Still they should have retired the ship to a navy dockyard or even made it into a museum, though a lot of the tech on board and design schematics are still relatively current.

The Government is getting a bargain at the $.01. It's saving them many many millions and I'm surprised they have a taker at all.

Breaking up the carriers presents unique industrial and security issues, and estimates of the cost to scrap them ranges from nearly nothing — according to the Navy — to as much as a half-billion dollars per ship.

The cost will depend on the price of scrap steel; the worst-case scenario for the Navy would be $2 billion to $3 billion to make all the ships go away. But with scrap steel trading at almost historically high levels, the government's disposal costs could be far less.

Apparently there is a whole lot on a Carrier and built up over the years of service for nasty and hazardous stuff to make it cost a fortune.

One generation earlier than the supercarriers that began with the Forrestal, Coral Sea remains the largest warship ever scrapped — and it wasn't easy.

The carrier's disposal stretched over seven years, bankrupted the original scrapper — who was sent to jail for environmental violations — exposed problems with the ship-scrapping industry, prompted several congressional hearings and led to federal regulations prohibiting the disposal of U.S. government ships to foreign countries.

(Source)

Still, it is too bad to see a piece of history like that go... It's just too big to keep, I suppose. Too much to maintain for that reason.

1 cent ?

Wonder who's profiting then from this ? lmao.

a reply to: 35Foxtrot

Yes, that's why it was "sold" to a Texas company to dismantle it. They don't really care about the EPA etc... the Railroad commission there runs it all...
It does cost a fortune to do this though. Steel isn't as high in value anymore, so they will make a few $$ to do it. Plus Texas is a "right to work" state, so they will get cheaper labor to do it also.

a reply to: GeekOfTheWeek

You forgot to mention... EVERYTHING is bigger in Texas...
;-)

originally posted by: seeker1963
a reply to: Metallicus

What gets me is the 1 cent thing!

Now as broke as this country is, why can't the government recycle it and break it down for scrap????

1 cent????

Hell! How about using it as a homeless shelter??????

Not knowing the realities of the situation always makes for stupid decisions. Just move that carrier next door and see how much it costs you. Where are you going to put it? Have you ever hired a tugboat? It's going to cost the company who cuts this up tens of millions of dollars to do so. They can't just "toss it on the scrapyard." The idea of a homeless shelter is even more ludicrous. Tell me where you are going to tie it up. It's nearly 1,000 feet long. You going to tie it up at the local marina? What, the toilets don't work? SOMEBODY fix the damn toilets! What, there's no place to put the sewage? What, these old pipes are covered with asbestos???? SUE the government! What? I have to climb down that ladder. What if I fall? What, I have to sleep on a friggin 'bunk bed'? I want a better mattress! What, the furnace doesn't work? Somebody turn on the furnace! It would cost millions of dollars to make even a part of this hulk habitable. It would be cheaper to buy an apartment building for the homeless than restore this ship, not exactly designed for it. Believe me, no one wants this ship! We can't exactly give it to Turkey like we do our old frigates.

I hate government waste as much as the next guy, but selling this piece of iron for a penny is one of the better decisions the government could do. It goes away at no cost to the government. Even sinking the sucker for a reef would cost more. This isn't the only one either. Here's what's happening with the other decommissioned carriers:

Recent decommissioned/inactivated carriers:

CV-59 Forrestal, 1955—1993, Brownsville, TX, Fate: Sold for scrap 10/23/13
CV-60 Saratoga, 1956—1994, Newport, RI, Fate: Sold for scrap 05/11/14
CV-61 Ranger, 1957—1993, Bremerton, WA, Fate: Scrap (save effort underway)
CV-62 Independence, 1959—1998, Bremerton, WA, Fate: Scrap or sink
CV-63 Kitty Hawk, 1961—2009, Bremerton; WA, Fate: Reserve until 2015
CV-64 Constellation, 1961—2003, Bremerton, Fate: Scrap pending 10/23/13
CVN-65 Enterprise, 1962-2012, Norfolk for reactor removal, Fate: Scrap
CV-66 America, 1965—1996, Fate: Scuttled in live fire exercise, 2005
CV-67 John F Kennedy, 1968—2007, Philadelphia, Fate: Donation hold