How can we save an old navy destroyer from going to the scrap yard. it is the first of its class. a modern mar

Question

a modern enginering marvel. it use steam plants for engines in which not many ship now a days still do. it repersents a class of many ships that many men and women served on. the navy wants to sell it for scrap.

Answer 1

easy to answer buy the bloody thing

Answer 2

contact the city it was built in and try to get them to buy it as a tourist attraction. Contact any of the cities that currently have ships on display to see if they want it. COntact the Navy and ask them to donate it to a maritime museum.

Answer 3

The defense dept has a full plate, and may lose some of their budget.

Only donations may be able to save it.

Answer 4

Buy it.  Offer a bid that's higher than the scrapyard's... and have a legitimate plan in place to move it to a new mooring.

Answer 5

Start a fund-raising effort. You should see how to contact the company selling it on the amount you would need to purchase it. Maybe they would cut you a deal. What is the name of the ship and what class Destroyer is it? I sincerely wish you luck. Too much history is lost to the scrapper.

Answer 6

is this US or Brit? In the US there are a bunch of Fletcher/Gearing class that are museums; the US Navy will donate it to your organized, non-profit corporation IF you have a sound fund raising plan in place.  

You have to show you have the $ and experience to maintain this ship, rather than let it go to h**l in a public place......the Navy would rather see her die in dignity at a scrappers than rust to death in public......

so you need a long term commitment for a wharf, public access, utilities, fund raising income, operational income, a plan for paid staff and volunteers....google search "Destroyer museums"...there's one in Patriots Point South Carolina, USS Joseph P Kennedy at Battleship Cove in Massachusetts, one I believe in Buffalo NY....identify people who are doing this now and call 'em up...

I'm not as up on Brit museums, other than the cruiser Belfast in London..same idea. Call em and pick their brains......but I am sure they have the same basic idea as the USN..show us the money and the plan and we'll talk......

and you'll need inspiration for many years while doing it...I offer O.W. Holmes poem written when the USN was going to scrap Old Ironsides:

AY, tear her tattered ensign down!

    Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see

    That banner in the sky;

Beneath it rung the battle shout,         

    And burst the cannon’s roar;—

The meteor of the ocean air

    Shall sweep the clouds no more.



Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,

    Where knelt the vanquished foe,         

When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,

    And waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor’s tread,

    Or know the conquered knee;

The harpies of the shore shall pluck         

    The eagle of the sea!



O, better that her shattered hulk

    Should sink beneath the wave;

Her thunders shook the mighty deep,

    And there should be her grave;         

Nail to the mast her holy flag,

    Set every threadbare sail,

And give her to the god of storms,

    The lightning and the gale!