Navy
Ex-carrier
Ranger set for last voyage in early 2015
Staff Report4:08
p.m. EST December 22, 2014
(Photo: U.S. Navy
image)
The ex-carrier Ranger
is set to make its final sea voyage in early 2015.
The Navy paid 1 cent
for shipbreakers to tow and scrap the decommisioned aircraft carrier, which
once launched combat missions in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm,
Naval Sea Systems Command said Monday.
"Under the
contract, the company will be paid $0.01. The price reflects the net price
proposed by International Shipbreaking, which considered the estimated proceeds
from the sale of the scrap metal to be generated from dismantling," the
NAVSEA release said. "$0.01 is the lowest price the Navy could possibly
have paid the contractor for towing and dismantling the ship."
The Ranger is to be
towed from its berth in Bremerton, Washington, to Brownsville, Texas, where
International Shipbreaking Ltd. is based. The carrier will have to be towed
around South America, a four to five month journey, as its too large to fit
through the Panama Canal, NAVSEA said.
The Ranger was
commissioned in 1957 and spent its entire 36-year career in the Pacific, making
a total of 22 Western Pacific deployments, NAVSEA said.
The dismantlement
comes after veterans' and historical groups were unable to raise enough money
to turn the Ranger into a museum, like The Intrepid Museum in New York City.
The Ranger had been on donation hold for eight years.
"After eight
years on donation hold, the USS Ranger Foundation was unable to raise the
necessary funds to convert the ship into a museum or to overcome the physical
obstacles of transporting her up the Columbia River to Fairfview, Oregon,"
NAVSEA said. "As a result, the Ranger was removed from the list of ships
available for dismantling and designated for dismantling."
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