Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - It may be hard to believe that it's been well over a year since the naval destroyer parked on Buffalo's waterfront, USS The Sullivans, started to significantly list, with holes in the hull that cause the ship to take on large amounts of water.
Fast forward to today, where a naval surveyor assessment has been completed for the vessel and sent to the Buffalo and Erie County Military and Naval Park's board of directors, as well as to the city for review.
listen to wben now!
"We hired the naval surveyor, OTS, Ocean Technical Services, back in December of 2022. [OTS] has spent the last three, four months surveying, accumulating data, putting his report together. We have submitted that to both our board and to the City of Buffalo. Right now, it's being reviewed by both parties," says Paul Marzello, President and CEO of the park.
We think, in the next few weeks, we should get a chance to get together with both our board and the City of Buffalo, to discuss the results of that report and to make some decisions on where we're going to go from here."
Although Marzello can't get into specifics of the report at this time. Marzello says it's likely that the boat will need to be dry docked, the surveyor put together prices and various locations where they could potentially dry dock the ship for hull repairs, which includes steelwork.
"The plan has always been if we're going to get her into dry dock, [we have] to remove the steel and put new steel plating on her hull from the water line down to the keel. That is the plan. It's going to take somewhere between three and six months depending on which drydock she gets into. But all of that will be revealed in the report as soon as that comes out," Marzello said.
A cofferdam has been ruled out for the ship, Marzello said that potential costs of getting that built would have costed between $35-45 million dollars.
The costs it will take to tug the boat to the dry docking location and the cost of the repairs are of great concern to Marzello. The process of getting the ship ready for transport comes with detailed plans, time and cost on its own.
"We certainly do not have the funds in place to do the job. If we are going to get The Sullivans out of her current birthing, we have to take The Little Rock, which has her double parked, and move her out into the canal and the few meters south.
We have to take The Croaker, the submarine, out into the river and move her a little bit to the north. So all of that has to be done before we can even get The Sullivans out. From that standpoint, she has to be connected to tugboats. The plan that's in place right now. I hope that we'll have adequate funding to make sure it happens."
Speaking of the other ships at the park, both The Croaker and The Little Rock have been assessed. The Croaker is going to need a long-term plan. Marzello reports that The Little Rock is in the best shape, but monitoring will continue.
Related
For the time being, the ship will stay at the park for the remainder of the summer season. We saw, this past Friday, groups of people aboard the vessel taking a tour. However, Marzello hopes that he can get the repairs going before the cold and dangerous Western New York winter season.
"We would like to see her taken out of here before the winter. But as I said, funding has a lot to do with that. We certainly don't want to put her through another winter if we don't have to. We know that just by having her sit in the harbor, she is at risk. If we have to move her, she's at risk. So until we get a new hull put on her, those risks are going to be a daily concern."
Marzello adds that the park is currently reviewing sources of revenue to get this ship fully funded for repairs.
"We're meeting with all the politicians, we're meeting with all our community leaders, and hopefully we can all work together to make sure that this ship can be preserved for generations to come. She's a national historic landmark, we think she has earned her right to be preserved and we're going to do our best to make sure that happens soon."