Buoyant1
Contributor
Git - r - down!!!!!!!!
Here she comes....Vandenberg!!!
- Thread starter finneganswake
- Start date
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Everything is on schedule for putting her on the bottom tomorrow!!! This means that my last dive in KW before I move to Texas on Thursday will be the V-burg clearance dive!! One heck of a dive to leave on.
I will miss you KW.
Safe dives
trtldvr
www.divealive.org
I will miss you KW.
Safe dives
trtldvr
www.divealive.org
mike_s
Contributor
recent news.....
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
A diver descending to the Vandenberg for the first time should pause on the down line. Enjoy the brilliant, surreal glow emanating from the depths -- it won't last long. Sunlight reflected by the white-painted surfaces of the massive shipwreck reef soon will fade, disappearing altogether within months. As the 510-foot Spiegel Grove off Key Largo has proven, the sea will quickly claim the Vandenberg, planned for scuttling six miles off Key West in 140 feet of water, as its own, covering its chalk-colored steel hull with a soft green blanket of sub-aquatic life.
Only those who see the wreck in the days after the retired military ship settles on the sea bottom will be able to conjure that deepwater gleam in the mind's eye.
Diving to a newly scuttled shipwreck is a rare underwater adventure -- a treasure of the memory.
The Vandenberg will beckon divers for decades to come but it never again will look like it does in the weeks after it slips beneath the waves.
The sinking is scheduled for Wednesday but the official all-clear for public diving will take longer. Before the world's newest shipwreck reef opens to recreational divers, a team trained by project organizers with the Artificial Reefs of the Keys group will scour the shipwreck to ensure safety.
Safety-team divers will look for undetonated explosives (they know where every charge is located) and check to see that the sinking has not created structural hazards in easily reached areas.
"The good news about the Vandenberg is that it will be a shallow and accessible wreck," said Bob Smith, the professional dive trainer who leads the clearance operation. "That's also the bad news about the Vandenberg."
"It will be a piece of cake for recreational divers who stay within their limitations," Smith said, "but they have to be careful to stay out of situations for which they're not properly trained."
That means keeping the thrill of the dive in check.
Remember the basics: Monitor depth and air supply, and stay out of enclosed spaces that don't offer a clear swim to the surface.
"No wreck dive is entirely safe, and the Vandenberg will have its hazards," Smith said. "But this will be a very safe dive for those who stay within their diving level. This can be an easy dive or a tremendously complex dive, depending on the level."
Most recreational divers should find plenty to explore in depths that allow for long bottom time.
According to widely used recreational dive tables, a diver who stays shallower than 60 feet has nearly an hour of no-decompression time. Go just 30 feet deeper, to 90 feet, and that time is cut in half.
Savor the experience. Do not try to see all the ship in one dive because it simply cannot be done. No one will be able to fully take in the length of the 520-foot former military ship on the first dive -- or the first several.
"Just the exterior surface is immense," Smith said. "It would take days of diving to explore just the surface areas in detail."
Every shipwreck reef in the Keys has its signature features: The big cable spool on the bow of Marathon's Thunderbolt; the coral-encrusted crow's nest of the Eagle off Islamorada; the gun turrets and well deck of the Spiegel Grove, sunk in 2002...
On the Vandenberg, be sure to find the big satellite dishes used to track missiles. The dishes, a prominent element of the science-fiction film "Virus," will be seen in many of the published underwater photographs from the Vandenberg. You'll want to say, "Yeah, I saw those."
The dishes have been removed from the massive bases that once held them. They are welded to the deck and secured with cable.
"Stay within your qualifications, and you'll have a safe and wonderful dive," Smith said.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
Advocates of artificial reefs say projects like the scuttling of the Vandenberg help marine life by creating new underwater habitat where fish populations can thrive. That view is not universally shared. Some conservationists have misgivings about shipwreck reefs and their effect on the ocean environment.
So what will happen after the Vandenberg sinks seven miles off Key West?
The Reef Environmental Education Foundation, based in Key Largo, recently completed a five-year monitoring project of marine life at the 510-foot Spiegel Grove, scuttled six miles off Key Largo in 2002.
"As we would've expected, it [the wreck] initially colonized immediately. It will continue to change," said Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF's director of science. "Populations will go up and down similar to how they do on a natural reef."
The study covers from 2002, when the Spiegel Grove took the plunge in 130 feet of water, until 2007.
The findings, which compare marine life at the Spiegel Grove to a nearby naturally occurring reef, indicate that nearly 200 species of fish call the former Navy ship home.
Some of the most prevalent species at the Key Largo shipwreck include blue tangs, Creole wrasse, barracuda, hogfish and yellowtail snapper.
Divers see Goliath grouper frequently. Blackfin snapper, usually a deepwater fish, seem to find the wreck appealing.
Pattengill-Semmens said artificial reefs are constantly evolving organisms, just like natural reefs.
"It will reach some sort of equilibrium eventually," she said. "It's all a part of the tangled web of marine ecosystems in the Keys."
REEF will undertake "the exact same project on the Vandenberg" to monitor fish life over several years. Dive teams have already surveyed the future wreck site and surrounding reefs for future comparison purposes.
Mike McCleary, program director for Key West conservation organization Reef Relief, said he has concerns about potential environmental threats stemming from the Vandenberg.
McCleary said fish would begin using the wreck for cover immediately. "As far as corals go, we're talking years, maybe decades," he said.
He agreed the Vandenberg will lure some divers and fishermen away from the coral reef, which is a plus. "It'll help take some of the pressure off of the real reef," McCleary said.
But Reef Relief still worries that not all contaminants were removed in the effort to clean the 522-foot Vandenberg. "One of our concerns with the process ... is that they have not removed everything," McCleary said. "I don't care what they say."
"There could be a potential with water-quality issues over the years," McCleary said.
But Vandenberg project organizers say a big reason the scuttling has taken years is delays caused by ever-changing environmental regulations and the tremendous quantity of contaminants that had to be removed.
Pollutants removed include 81 bags of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of buoyant refuse, 300 pounds of materials containing mercury and 184 55-gallon drums of paint chips.
Money pledged by city, county, state and federal authorities -- more than $8 million -- could have been spent to address what McCleary says is the main cause of reef decay and water-quality problems -- poor sewage treatment.
The state has mandated a July 2010 deadline for everyone in the county to be hooked up to central sewers.
"If they took that money they got for the Vandenberg and spent it on advanced wastewater, that is the real protection our living reef needs," McCleary said.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Dive shops busier than usual
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:54 AM EDT
With the scuttling of the Vandenberg just days away, Lower Keys and Key West dive shops are ramping up preparations to offer trips out to the wreck.
Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West on North Roosevelt Boulevard, said he's expecting dive trips to the Vandenberg to be a big hit with Keys tourists.
"The phones have been absolutely crazy," he said. "We have four people basically answering phones all day long."
He said he has received bookings from across the United States and from as far a field as Norway, Germany and England.
"We're getting tremendous interest," Holston said.
Dive Key West will offer guided tours of the Vandenberg's top deck and superstructure but won't offer dives that penetrate the interior of the former military vessel.
"All of the staff has been on board the ship" while it's been docked at the Truman Waterfront, Holston said, and "there's so much to see on the decks and above."
Dive Key West operates a 46-foot boat that holds 16 passengers.
Just a trip out to the new wreck is $99; it's $119 if you need tanks and weights and, for a full equipment package, it's $149. The trip will last for about four hours, with a little over an hour of that being the travel time out to the wreck site seven miles off Key West.
For more information on Dive Key West, call 296-3823 or check out Dive Key West; Key West Scuba Diving Charters, Scuba Dive, Diving, Dive Charters in Key West Florida .
Leslie Levis, manager of the Captain's Corner dive shop in Old Town, told the Keynoter her shop won't offer guided dives due to liability issues.
But she did note that verifying dive certifications would be taken seriously by others who offer Vandenberg dives, saying "I do believe that because of the complexity of the dive, people are going to pay more attention."
She also addressed concerns that not-so-experienced divers could get in trouble trying to explore the interior of the Vandenberg.
"It's such an extensive ship, most people are going to stay on the top" exploring the antenna and satellite dishes. "Most people have common sense and a self-preservation instinct."
While not offering guided tours, Captain's Corner will offer four-hour trips to the wreck with full equipment for $95. With just tanks and weights, the cost is $75. The shop's Sea Eagle is 60 feet long and holds 22 passengers.
For more information, call 296-8865 or go to www.captainscorner.com .
The wreck will be open to recreational divers after officials send teams of clearance divers down to the Vandenberg after she is scuttled to ensure it's secure. That is expected to take a day.
While the dive shops are busy with the excitement of a new wreck, the impact of the scuttling on the Lower Keys lodging industry is a little harder to place.
"Unfortunately, with the timing so close to Memorial Day, it's going to be hard to tell what's holiday traffic and what's other business," says Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West.
She also cited the constantly changing sink window -- weather will determine exactly when the scuttling takes place -- and the subsequent inability of the county Tourist Development Council to market the event.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
The ship that now bears the name USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg has a long history of serving her country, starting in 1944 when she was acquired by the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the USS Gen. Harry Taylor.
Following is a timeline of the Vandenberg's service:
# 1943: The 523-foot ship is built and launched by Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif.
# 1944: The Navy acquires the vessel and commissions her the USS Gen. Harry Taylor; subsequently, the ship serves as a troop transport vessel during World War II, making ports of call in places such as San Francisco, New Guinea, Pearl Harbor, Guam and the Marshall Islands.
# 1945: On Aug. 5, the Taylor's en route from the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to participate in an invasion of Japan.
# 1945: On Aug. 15, victory over Japan is announced so the Taylor is redirected to New York City. She is the first ship home from the war.
# 1945-1946: Following the war, the Taylor serves as a so-called "magic carpet," transporting American service men and women, along with refugees, to New York City from France, Germany, Egypt and India.
# 1958: The Taylor is placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Texas following more than a decade of going in and out of commission and being transferred from one defense agency to another.
# 1963: Following refurbishment, the Air Force recommissions the Taylor as the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Vandenberg was a fighter pilot for the Air Force in World War II, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Air Force chief of staff.
# 1965-1975: The Vandenberg serves as a missile tracking ship in the Pacific.
# 1977-1982: After having an instrument upgrade, she tracks missile and space shuttle launches in Cape Canaveral.
# 1983: The Vandenberg is transferred to the mothball fleet on the James River in Virginia and struck from the Navy ship registry in 1993.
# 1996: The Vandenberg is leased to Universal Studios for the filming of "Virus" starring Jamie Lee Curtis.
# 1999: Artificial Reefs of the Florida Keys forms to bring the Vandenberg to Key West for eventual scuttling as an artificial reef.
# 2000-2008: ARK works with Key West, Monroe County and state and federal authorities to secure funding -- more than $8 million when all was said and done -- and the ship is stripped of pollutants in preparation for scuttling.
# 2008: In December, a federal judge orders the Vandenberg to be auctioned to satisfy a lien filed by the shipyard and subcontractors that prepared the vessel for scuttling. First State Bank officials go to Norfolk, Va., for the auction and pony up $1.35 million to secure the ship for the Keys.
# 2009: The Vandenberg is towed into Key West in late April and is poised to take the plunge, seven miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water, on Wednesday.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
The USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is set to sink Wednesday. Here are some details about the ship and the sink location.
The Vandenberg:
# Weighs 17,120 tons, or 34.24 million pounds.
# Is 522 feet, 10 inches long.
# Has a beam, or width, of 71 feet, 6 inches.
# Has a draft, or the distance between the bottom of the hull and the waterline, of 24 feet.
After sinking, the ship:
# Will sit in 140 feet of water, with 40 feet of required clearance for surface ships. Four anchor-and-chain rigs, each weighing eight tons, will keep it on the ocean floor.
# Will be located at 24.27 north latitude, 81.44 west longitude, approximately seven miles south of Key West International Airport within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
# The superstructure, such as the stacks, masts and antennas, will be between 40 and 50 feet below the surface.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
A diver descending to the Vandenberg for the first time should pause on the down line. Enjoy the brilliant, surreal glow emanating from the depths -- it won't last long. Sunlight reflected by the white-painted surfaces of the massive shipwreck reef soon will fade, disappearing altogether within months. As the 510-foot Spiegel Grove off Key Largo has proven, the sea will quickly claim the Vandenberg, planned for scuttling six miles off Key West in 140 feet of water, as its own, covering its chalk-colored steel hull with a soft green blanket of sub-aquatic life.
Only those who see the wreck in the days after the retired military ship settles on the sea bottom will be able to conjure that deepwater gleam in the mind's eye.
Diving to a newly scuttled shipwreck is a rare underwater adventure -- a treasure of the memory.
The Vandenberg will beckon divers for decades to come but it never again will look like it does in the weeks after it slips beneath the waves.
The sinking is scheduled for Wednesday but the official all-clear for public diving will take longer. Before the world's newest shipwreck reef opens to recreational divers, a team trained by project organizers with the Artificial Reefs of the Keys group will scour the shipwreck to ensure safety.
Safety-team divers will look for undetonated explosives (they know where every charge is located) and check to see that the sinking has not created structural hazards in easily reached areas.
"The good news about the Vandenberg is that it will be a shallow and accessible wreck," said Bob Smith, the professional dive trainer who leads the clearance operation. "That's also the bad news about the Vandenberg."
"It will be a piece of cake for recreational divers who stay within their limitations," Smith said, "but they have to be careful to stay out of situations for which they're not properly trained."
That means keeping the thrill of the dive in check.
Remember the basics: Monitor depth and air supply, and stay out of enclosed spaces that don't offer a clear swim to the surface.
"No wreck dive is entirely safe, and the Vandenberg will have its hazards," Smith said. "But this will be a very safe dive for those who stay within their diving level. This can be an easy dive or a tremendously complex dive, depending on the level."
Most recreational divers should find plenty to explore in depths that allow for long bottom time.
According to widely used recreational dive tables, a diver who stays shallower than 60 feet has nearly an hour of no-decompression time. Go just 30 feet deeper, to 90 feet, and that time is cut in half.
Savor the experience. Do not try to see all the ship in one dive because it simply cannot be done. No one will be able to fully take in the length of the 520-foot former military ship on the first dive -- or the first several.
"Just the exterior surface is immense," Smith said. "It would take days of diving to explore just the surface areas in detail."
Every shipwreck reef in the Keys has its signature features: The big cable spool on the bow of Marathon's Thunderbolt; the coral-encrusted crow's nest of the Eagle off Islamorada; the gun turrets and well deck of the Spiegel Grove, sunk in 2002...
On the Vandenberg, be sure to find the big satellite dishes used to track missiles. The dishes, a prominent element of the science-fiction film "Virus," will be seen in many of the published underwater photographs from the Vandenberg. You'll want to say, "Yeah, I saw those."
The dishes have been removed from the massive bases that once held them. They are welded to the deck and secured with cable.
"Stay within your qualifications, and you'll have a safe and wonderful dive," Smith said.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
Advocates of artificial reefs say projects like the scuttling of the Vandenberg help marine life by creating new underwater habitat where fish populations can thrive. That view is not universally shared. Some conservationists have misgivings about shipwreck reefs and their effect on the ocean environment.
So what will happen after the Vandenberg sinks seven miles off Key West?
The Reef Environmental Education Foundation, based in Key Largo, recently completed a five-year monitoring project of marine life at the 510-foot Spiegel Grove, scuttled six miles off Key Largo in 2002.
"As we would've expected, it [the wreck] initially colonized immediately. It will continue to change," said Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF's director of science. "Populations will go up and down similar to how they do on a natural reef."
The study covers from 2002, when the Spiegel Grove took the plunge in 130 feet of water, until 2007.
The findings, which compare marine life at the Spiegel Grove to a nearby naturally occurring reef, indicate that nearly 200 species of fish call the former Navy ship home.
Some of the most prevalent species at the Key Largo shipwreck include blue tangs, Creole wrasse, barracuda, hogfish and yellowtail snapper.
Divers see Goliath grouper frequently. Blackfin snapper, usually a deepwater fish, seem to find the wreck appealing.
Pattengill-Semmens said artificial reefs are constantly evolving organisms, just like natural reefs.
"It will reach some sort of equilibrium eventually," she said. "It's all a part of the tangled web of marine ecosystems in the Keys."
REEF will undertake "the exact same project on the Vandenberg" to monitor fish life over several years. Dive teams have already surveyed the future wreck site and surrounding reefs for future comparison purposes.
Mike McCleary, program director for Key West conservation organization Reef Relief, said he has concerns about potential environmental threats stemming from the Vandenberg.
McCleary said fish would begin using the wreck for cover immediately. "As far as corals go, we're talking years, maybe decades," he said.
He agreed the Vandenberg will lure some divers and fishermen away from the coral reef, which is a plus. "It'll help take some of the pressure off of the real reef," McCleary said.
But Reef Relief still worries that not all contaminants were removed in the effort to clean the 522-foot Vandenberg. "One of our concerns with the process ... is that they have not removed everything," McCleary said. "I don't care what they say."
"There could be a potential with water-quality issues over the years," McCleary said.
But Vandenberg project organizers say a big reason the scuttling has taken years is delays caused by ever-changing environmental regulations and the tremendous quantity of contaminants that had to be removed.
Pollutants removed include 81 bags of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of buoyant refuse, 300 pounds of materials containing mercury and 184 55-gallon drums of paint chips.
Money pledged by city, county, state and federal authorities -- more than $8 million -- could have been spent to address what McCleary says is the main cause of reef decay and water-quality problems -- poor sewage treatment.
The state has mandated a July 2010 deadline for everyone in the county to be hooked up to central sewers.
"If they took that money they got for the Vandenberg and spent it on advanced wastewater, that is the real protection our living reef needs," McCleary said.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Dive shops busier than usual
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:54 AM EDT
With the scuttling of the Vandenberg just days away, Lower Keys and Key West dive shops are ramping up preparations to offer trips out to the wreck.
Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West on North Roosevelt Boulevard, said he's expecting dive trips to the Vandenberg to be a big hit with Keys tourists.
"The phones have been absolutely crazy," he said. "We have four people basically answering phones all day long."
He said he has received bookings from across the United States and from as far a field as Norway, Germany and England.
"We're getting tremendous interest," Holston said.
Dive Key West will offer guided tours of the Vandenberg's top deck and superstructure but won't offer dives that penetrate the interior of the former military vessel.
"All of the staff has been on board the ship" while it's been docked at the Truman Waterfront, Holston said, and "there's so much to see on the decks and above."
Dive Key West operates a 46-foot boat that holds 16 passengers.
Just a trip out to the new wreck is $99; it's $119 if you need tanks and weights and, for a full equipment package, it's $149. The trip will last for about four hours, with a little over an hour of that being the travel time out to the wreck site seven miles off Key West.
For more information on Dive Key West, call 296-3823 or check out Dive Key West; Key West Scuba Diving Charters, Scuba Dive, Diving, Dive Charters in Key West Florida .
Leslie Levis, manager of the Captain's Corner dive shop in Old Town, told the Keynoter her shop won't offer guided dives due to liability issues.
But she did note that verifying dive certifications would be taken seriously by others who offer Vandenberg dives, saying "I do believe that because of the complexity of the dive, people are going to pay more attention."
She also addressed concerns that not-so-experienced divers could get in trouble trying to explore the interior of the Vandenberg.
"It's such an extensive ship, most people are going to stay on the top" exploring the antenna and satellite dishes. "Most people have common sense and a self-preservation instinct."
While not offering guided tours, Captain's Corner will offer four-hour trips to the wreck with full equipment for $95. With just tanks and weights, the cost is $75. The shop's Sea Eagle is 60 feet long and holds 22 passengers.
For more information, call 296-8865 or go to www.captainscorner.com .
The wreck will be open to recreational divers after officials send teams of clearance divers down to the Vandenberg after she is scuttled to ensure it's secure. That is expected to take a day.
While the dive shops are busy with the excitement of a new wreck, the impact of the scuttling on the Lower Keys lodging industry is a little harder to place.
"Unfortunately, with the timing so close to Memorial Day, it's going to be hard to tell what's holiday traffic and what's other business," says Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West.
She also cited the constantly changing sink window -- weather will determine exactly when the scuttling takes place -- and the subsequent inability of the county Tourist Development Council to market the event.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
The ship that now bears the name USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg has a long history of serving her country, starting in 1944 when she was acquired by the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the USS Gen. Harry Taylor.
Following is a timeline of the Vandenberg's service:
# 1943: The 523-foot ship is built and launched by Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif.
# 1944: The Navy acquires the vessel and commissions her the USS Gen. Harry Taylor; subsequently, the ship serves as a troop transport vessel during World War II, making ports of call in places such as San Francisco, New Guinea, Pearl Harbor, Guam and the Marshall Islands.
# 1945: On Aug. 5, the Taylor's en route from the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to participate in an invasion of Japan.
# 1945: On Aug. 15, victory over Japan is announced so the Taylor is redirected to New York City. She is the first ship home from the war.
# 1945-1946: Following the war, the Taylor serves as a so-called "magic carpet," transporting American service men and women, along with refugees, to New York City from France, Germany, Egypt and India.
# 1958: The Taylor is placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Texas following more than a decade of going in and out of commission and being transferred from one defense agency to another.
# 1963: Following refurbishment, the Air Force recommissions the Taylor as the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Vandenberg was a fighter pilot for the Air Force in World War II, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Air Force chief of staff.
# 1965-1975: The Vandenberg serves as a missile tracking ship in the Pacific.
# 1977-1982: After having an instrument upgrade, she tracks missile and space shuttle launches in Cape Canaveral.
# 1983: The Vandenberg is transferred to the mothball fleet on the James River in Virginia and struck from the Navy ship registry in 1993.
# 1996: The Vandenberg is leased to Universal Studios for the filming of "Virus" starring Jamie Lee Curtis.
# 1999: Artificial Reefs of the Florida Keys forms to bring the Vandenberg to Key West for eventual scuttling as an artificial reef.
# 2000-2008: ARK works with Key West, Monroe County and state and federal authorities to secure funding -- more than $8 million when all was said and done -- and the ship is stripped of pollutants in preparation for scuttling.
# 2008: In December, a federal judge orders the Vandenberg to be auctioned to satisfy a lien filed by the shipyard and subcontractors that prepared the vessel for scuttling. First State Bank officials go to Norfolk, Va., for the auction and pony up $1.35 million to secure the ship for the Keys.
# 2009: The Vandenberg is towed into Key West in late April and is poised to take the plunge, seven miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water, on Wednesday.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
The USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is set to sink Wednesday. Here are some details about the ship and the sink location.
The Vandenberg:
# Weighs 17,120 tons, or 34.24 million pounds.
# Is 522 feet, 10 inches long.
# Has a beam, or width, of 71 feet, 6 inches.
# Has a draft, or the distance between the bottom of the hull and the waterline, of 24 feet.
After sinking, the ship:
# Will sit in 140 feet of water, with 40 feet of required clearance for surface ships. Four anchor-and-chain rigs, each weighing eight tons, will keep it on the ocean floor.
# Will be located at 24.27 north latitude, 81.44 west longitude, approximately seven miles south of Key West International Airport within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
# The superstructure, such as the stacks, masts and antennas, will be between 40 and 50 feet below the surface.
mike_s
Contributor
recent news.....
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
A diver descending to the Vandenberg for the first time should pause on the down line. Enjoy the brilliant, surreal glow emanating from the depths -- it won't last long. Sunlight reflected by the white-painted surfaces of the massive shipwreck reef soon will fade, disappearing altogether within months. As the 510-foot Spiegel Grove off Key Largo has proven, the sea will quickly claim the Vandenberg, planned for scuttling six miles off Key West in 140 feet of water, as its own, covering its chalk-colored steel hull with a soft green blanket of sub-aquatic life.
Only those who see the wreck in the days after the retired military ship settles on the sea bottom will be able to conjure that deepwater gleam in the mind's eye.
Diving to a newly scuttled shipwreck is a rare underwater adventure -- a treasure of the memory.
The Vandenberg will beckon divers for decades to come but it never again will look like it does in the weeks after it slips beneath the waves.
The sinking is scheduled for Wednesday but the official all-clear for public diving will take longer. Before the world's newest shipwreck reef opens to recreational divers, a team trained by project organizers with the Artificial Reefs of the Keys group will scour the shipwreck to ensure safety.
Safety-team divers will look for undetonated explosives (they know where every charge is located) and check to see that the sinking has not created structural hazards in easily reached areas.
"The good news about the Vandenberg is that it will be a shallow and accessible wreck," said Bob Smith, the professional dive trainer who leads the clearance operation. "That's also the bad news about the Vandenberg."
"It will be a piece of cake for recreational divers who stay within their limitations," Smith said, "but they have to be careful to stay out of situations for which they're not properly trained."
That means keeping the thrill of the dive in check.
Remember the basics: Monitor depth and air supply, and stay out of enclosed spaces that don't offer a clear swim to the surface.
"No wreck dive is entirely safe, and the Vandenberg will have its hazards," Smith said. "But this will be a very safe dive for those who stay within their diving level. This can be an easy dive or a tremendously complex dive, depending on the level."
Most recreational divers should find plenty to explore in depths that allow for long bottom time.
According to widely used recreational dive tables, a diver who stays shallower than 60 feet has nearly an hour of no-decompression time. Go just 30 feet deeper, to 90 feet, and that time is cut in half.
Savor the experience. Do not try to see all the ship in one dive because it simply cannot be done. No one will be able to fully take in the length of the 520-foot former military ship on the first dive -- or the first several.
"Just the exterior surface is immense," Smith said. "It would take days of diving to explore just the surface areas in detail."
Every shipwreck reef in the Keys has its signature features: The big cable spool on the bow of Marathon's Thunderbolt; the coral-encrusted crow's nest of the Eagle off Islamorada; the gun turrets and well deck of the Spiegel Grove, sunk in 2002...
On the Vandenberg, be sure to find the big satellite dishes used to track missiles. The dishes, a prominent element of the science-fiction film "Virus," will be seen in many of the published underwater photographs from the Vandenberg. You'll want to say, "Yeah, I saw those."
The dishes have been removed from the massive bases that once held them. They are welded to the deck and secured with cable.
"Stay within your qualifications, and you'll have a safe and wonderful dive," Smith said.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
Advocates of artificial reefs say projects like the scuttling of the Vandenberg help marine life by creating new underwater habitat where fish populations can thrive. That view is not universally shared. Some conservationists have misgivings about shipwreck reefs and their effect on the ocean environment.
So what will happen after the Vandenberg sinks seven miles off Key West?
The Reef Environmental Education Foundation, based in Key Largo, recently completed a five-year monitoring project of marine life at the 510-foot Spiegel Grove, scuttled six miles off Key Largo in 2002.
"As we would've expected, it [the wreck] initially colonized immediately. It will continue to change," said Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF's director of science. "Populations will go up and down similar to how they do on a natural reef."
The study covers from 2002, when the Spiegel Grove took the plunge in 130 feet of water, until 2007.
The findings, which compare marine life at the Spiegel Grove to a nearby naturally occurring reef, indicate that nearly 200 species of fish call the former Navy ship home.
Some of the most prevalent species at the Key Largo shipwreck include blue tangs, Creole wrasse, barracuda, hogfish and yellowtail snapper.
Divers see Goliath grouper frequently. Blackfin snapper, usually a deepwater fish, seem to find the wreck appealing.
Pattengill-Semmens said artificial reefs are constantly evolving organisms, just like natural reefs.
"It will reach some sort of equilibrium eventually," she said. "It's all a part of the tangled web of marine ecosystems in the Keys."
REEF will undertake "the exact same project on the Vandenberg" to monitor fish life over several years. Dive teams have already surveyed the future wreck site and surrounding reefs for future comparison purposes.
Mike McCleary, program director for Key West conservation organization Reef Relief, said he has concerns about potential environmental threats stemming from the Vandenberg.
McCleary said fish would begin using the wreck for cover immediately. "As far as corals go, we're talking years, maybe decades," he said.
He agreed the Vandenberg will lure some divers and fishermen away from the coral reef, which is a plus. "It'll help take some of the pressure off of the real reef," McCleary said.
But Reef Relief still worries that not all contaminants were removed in the effort to clean the 522-foot Vandenberg. "One of our concerns with the process ... is that they have not removed everything," McCleary said. "I don't care what they say."
"There could be a potential with water-quality issues over the years," McCleary said.
But Vandenberg project organizers say a big reason the scuttling has taken years is delays caused by ever-changing environmental regulations and the tremendous quantity of contaminants that had to be removed.
Pollutants removed include 81 bags of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of buoyant refuse, 300 pounds of materials containing mercury and 184 55-gallon drums of paint chips.
Money pledged by city, county, state and federal authorities -- more than $8 million -- could have been spent to address what McCleary says is the main cause of reef decay and water-quality problems -- poor sewage treatment.
The state has mandated a July 2010 deadline for everyone in the county to be hooked up to central sewers.
"If they took that money they got for the Vandenberg and spent it on advanced wastewater, that is the real protection our living reef needs," McCleary said.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Dive shops busier than usual
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:54 AM EDT
With the scuttling of the Vandenberg just days away, Lower Keys and Key West dive shops are ramping up preparations to offer trips out to the wreck.
Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West on North Roosevelt Boulevard, said he's expecting dive trips to the Vandenberg to be a big hit with Keys tourists.
"The phones have been absolutely crazy," he said. "We have four people basically answering phones all day long."
He said he has received bookings from across the United States and from as far a field as Norway, Germany and England.
"We're getting tremendous interest," Holston said.
Dive Key West will offer guided tours of the Vandenberg's top deck and superstructure but won't offer dives that penetrate the interior of the former military vessel.
"All of the staff has been on board the ship" while it's been docked at the Truman Waterfront, Holston said, and "there's so much to see on the decks and above."
Dive Key West operates a 46-foot boat that holds 16 passengers.
Just a trip out to the new wreck is $99; it's $119 if you need tanks and weights and, for a full equipment package, it's $149. The trip will last for about four hours, with a little over an hour of that being the travel time out to the wreck site seven miles off Key West.
For more information on Dive Key West, call 296-3823 or check out Dive Key West; Key West Scuba Diving Charters, Scuba Dive, Diving, Dive Charters in Key West Florida .
Leslie Levis, manager of the Captain's Corner dive shop in Old Town, told the Keynoter her shop won't offer guided dives due to liability issues.
But she did note that verifying dive certifications would be taken seriously by others who offer Vandenberg dives, saying "I do believe that because of the complexity of the dive, people are going to pay more attention."
She also addressed concerns that not-so-experienced divers could get in trouble trying to explore the interior of the Vandenberg.
"It's such an extensive ship, most people are going to stay on the top" exploring the antenna and satellite dishes. "Most people have common sense and a self-preservation instinct."
While not offering guided tours, Captain's Corner will offer four-hour trips to the wreck with full equipment for $95. With just tanks and weights, the cost is $75. The shop's Sea Eagle is 60 feet long and holds 22 passengers.
For more information, call 296-8865 or go to www.captainscorner.com .
The wreck will be open to recreational divers after officials send teams of clearance divers down to the Vandenberg after she is scuttled to ensure it's secure. That is expected to take a day.
While the dive shops are busy with the excitement of a new wreck, the impact of the scuttling on the Lower Keys lodging industry is a little harder to place.
"Unfortunately, with the timing so close to Memorial Day, it's going to be hard to tell what's holiday traffic and what's other business," says Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West.
She also cited the constantly changing sink window -- weather will determine exactly when the scuttling takes place -- and the subsequent inability of the county Tourist Development Council to market the event.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
The ship that now bears the name USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg has a long history of serving her country, starting in 1944 when she was acquired by the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the USS Gen. Harry Taylor.
Following is a timeline of the Vandenberg's service:
# 1943: The 523-foot ship is built and launched by Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif.
# 1944: The Navy acquires the vessel and commissions her the USS Gen. Harry Taylor; subsequently, the ship serves as a troop transport vessel during World War II, making ports of call in places such as San Francisco, New Guinea, Pearl Harbor, Guam and the Marshall Islands.
# 1945: On Aug. 5, the Taylor's en route from the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to participate in an invasion of Japan.
# 1945: On Aug. 15, victory over Japan is announced so the Taylor is redirected to New York City. She is the first ship home from the war.
# 1945-1946: Following the war, the Taylor serves as a so-called "magic carpet," transporting American service men and women, along with refugees, to New York City from France, Germany, Egypt and India.
# 1958: The Taylor is placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Texas following more than a decade of going in and out of commission and being transferred from one defense agency to another.
# 1963: Following refurbishment, the Air Force recommissions the Taylor as the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Vandenberg was a fighter pilot for the Air Force in World War II, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Air Force chief of staff.
# 1965-1975: The Vandenberg serves as a missile tracking ship in the Pacific.
# 1977-1982: After having an instrument upgrade, she tracks missile and space shuttle launches in Cape Canaveral.
# 1983: The Vandenberg is transferred to the mothball fleet on the James River in Virginia and struck from the Navy ship registry in 1993.
# 1996: The Vandenberg is leased to Universal Studios for the filming of "Virus" starring Jamie Lee Curtis.
# 1999: Artificial Reefs of the Florida Keys forms to bring the Vandenberg to Key West for eventual scuttling as an artificial reef.
# 2000-2008: ARK works with Key West, Monroe County and state and federal authorities to secure funding -- more than $8 million when all was said and done -- and the ship is stripped of pollutants in preparation for scuttling.
# 2008: In December, a federal judge orders the Vandenberg to be auctioned to satisfy a lien filed by the shipyard and subcontractors that prepared the vessel for scuttling. First State Bank officials go to Norfolk, Va., for the auction and pony up $1.35 million to secure the ship for the Keys.
# 2009: The Vandenberg is towed into Key West in late April and is poised to take the plunge, seven miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water, on Wednesday.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: You'll never get a view like this again
By KEVIN WADLOW
kwadlow@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
A diver descending to the Vandenberg for the first time should pause on the down line. Enjoy the brilliant, surreal glow emanating from the depths -- it won't last long. Sunlight reflected by the white-painted surfaces of the massive shipwreck reef soon will fade, disappearing altogether within months. As the 510-foot Spiegel Grove off Key Largo has proven, the sea will quickly claim the Vandenberg, planned for scuttling six miles off Key West in 140 feet of water, as its own, covering its chalk-colored steel hull with a soft green blanket of sub-aquatic life.
Only those who see the wreck in the days after the retired military ship settles on the sea bottom will be able to conjure that deepwater gleam in the mind's eye.
Diving to a newly scuttled shipwreck is a rare underwater adventure -- a treasure of the memory.
The Vandenberg will beckon divers for decades to come but it never again will look like it does in the weeks after it slips beneath the waves.
The sinking is scheduled for Wednesday but the official all-clear for public diving will take longer. Before the world's newest shipwreck reef opens to recreational divers, a team trained by project organizers with the Artificial Reefs of the Keys group will scour the shipwreck to ensure safety.
Safety-team divers will look for undetonated explosives (they know where every charge is located) and check to see that the sinking has not created structural hazards in easily reached areas.
"The good news about the Vandenberg is that it will be a shallow and accessible wreck," said Bob Smith, the professional dive trainer who leads the clearance operation. "That's also the bad news about the Vandenberg."
"It will be a piece of cake for recreational divers who stay within their limitations," Smith said, "but they have to be careful to stay out of situations for which they're not properly trained."
That means keeping the thrill of the dive in check.
Remember the basics: Monitor depth and air supply, and stay out of enclosed spaces that don't offer a clear swim to the surface.
"No wreck dive is entirely safe, and the Vandenberg will have its hazards," Smith said. "But this will be a very safe dive for those who stay within their diving level. This can be an easy dive or a tremendously complex dive, depending on the level."
Most recreational divers should find plenty to explore in depths that allow for long bottom time.
According to widely used recreational dive tables, a diver who stays shallower than 60 feet has nearly an hour of no-decompression time. Go just 30 feet deeper, to 90 feet, and that time is cut in half.
Savor the experience. Do not try to see all the ship in one dive because it simply cannot be done. No one will be able to fully take in the length of the 520-foot former military ship on the first dive -- or the first several.
"Just the exterior surface is immense," Smith said. "It would take days of diving to explore just the surface areas in detail."
Every shipwreck reef in the Keys has its signature features: The big cable spool on the bow of Marathon's Thunderbolt; the coral-encrusted crow's nest of the Eagle off Islamorada; the gun turrets and well deck of the Spiegel Grove, sunk in 2002...
On the Vandenberg, be sure to find the big satellite dishes used to track missiles. The dishes, a prominent element of the science-fiction film "Virus," will be seen in many of the published underwater photographs from the Vandenberg. You'll want to say, "Yeah, I saw those."
The dishes have been removed from the massive bases that once held them. They are welded to the deck and secured with cable.
"Stay within your qualifications, and you'll have a safe and wonderful dive," Smith said.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship will 'colonize immediately'
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:55 AM EDT
Advocates of artificial reefs say projects like the scuttling of the Vandenberg help marine life by creating new underwater habitat where fish populations can thrive. That view is not universally shared. Some conservationists have misgivings about shipwreck reefs and their effect on the ocean environment.
So what will happen after the Vandenberg sinks seven miles off Key West?
The Reef Environmental Education Foundation, based in Key Largo, recently completed a five-year monitoring project of marine life at the 510-foot Spiegel Grove, scuttled six miles off Key Largo in 2002.
"As we would've expected, it [the wreck] initially colonized immediately. It will continue to change," said Christy Pattengill-Semmens, REEF's director of science. "Populations will go up and down similar to how they do on a natural reef."
The study covers from 2002, when the Spiegel Grove took the plunge in 130 feet of water, until 2007.
The findings, which compare marine life at the Spiegel Grove to a nearby naturally occurring reef, indicate that nearly 200 species of fish call the former Navy ship home.
Some of the most prevalent species at the Key Largo shipwreck include blue tangs, Creole wrasse, barracuda, hogfish and yellowtail snapper.
Divers see Goliath grouper frequently. Blackfin snapper, usually a deepwater fish, seem to find the wreck appealing.
Pattengill-Semmens said artificial reefs are constantly evolving organisms, just like natural reefs.
"It will reach some sort of equilibrium eventually," she said. "It's all a part of the tangled web of marine ecosystems in the Keys."
REEF will undertake "the exact same project on the Vandenberg" to monitor fish life over several years. Dive teams have already surveyed the future wreck site and surrounding reefs for future comparison purposes.
Mike McCleary, program director for Key West conservation organization Reef Relief, said he has concerns about potential environmental threats stemming from the Vandenberg.
McCleary said fish would begin using the wreck for cover immediately. "As far as corals go, we're talking years, maybe decades," he said.
He agreed the Vandenberg will lure some divers and fishermen away from the coral reef, which is a plus. "It'll help take some of the pressure off of the real reef," McCleary said.
But Reef Relief still worries that not all contaminants were removed in the effort to clean the 522-foot Vandenberg. "One of our concerns with the process ... is that they have not removed everything," McCleary said. "I don't care what they say."
"There could be a potential with water-quality issues over the years," McCleary said.
But Vandenberg project organizers say a big reason the scuttling has taken years is delays caused by ever-changing environmental regulations and the tremendous quantity of contaminants that had to be removed.
Pollutants removed include 81 bags of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of buoyant refuse, 300 pounds of materials containing mercury and 184 55-gallon drums of paint chips.
Money pledged by city, county, state and federal authorities -- more than $8 million -- could have been spent to address what McCleary says is the main cause of reef decay and water-quality problems -- poor sewage treatment.
The state has mandated a July 2010 deadline for everyone in the county to be hooked up to central sewers.
"If they took that money they got for the Vandenberg and spent it on advanced wastewater, that is the real protection our living reef needs," McCleary said.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Dive shops busier than usual
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:54 AM EDT
With the scuttling of the Vandenberg just days away, Lower Keys and Key West dive shops are ramping up preparations to offer trips out to the wreck.
Bob Holston, owner of Dive Key West on North Roosevelt Boulevard, said he's expecting dive trips to the Vandenberg to be a big hit with Keys tourists.
"The phones have been absolutely crazy," he said. "We have four people basically answering phones all day long."
He said he has received bookings from across the United States and from as far a field as Norway, Germany and England.
"We're getting tremendous interest," Holston said.
Dive Key West will offer guided tours of the Vandenberg's top deck and superstructure but won't offer dives that penetrate the interior of the former military vessel.
"All of the staff has been on board the ship" while it's been docked at the Truman Waterfront, Holston said, and "there's so much to see on the decks and above."
Dive Key West operates a 46-foot boat that holds 16 passengers.
Just a trip out to the new wreck is $99; it's $119 if you need tanks and weights and, for a full equipment package, it's $149. The trip will last for about four hours, with a little over an hour of that being the travel time out to the wreck site seven miles off Key West.
For more information on Dive Key West, call 296-3823 or check out Dive Key West; Key West Scuba Diving Charters, Scuba Dive, Diving, Dive Charters in Key West Florida .
Leslie Levis, manager of the Captain's Corner dive shop in Old Town, told the Keynoter her shop won't offer guided dives due to liability issues.
But she did note that verifying dive certifications would be taken seriously by others who offer Vandenberg dives, saying "I do believe that because of the complexity of the dive, people are going to pay more attention."
She also addressed concerns that not-so-experienced divers could get in trouble trying to explore the interior of the Vandenberg.
"It's such an extensive ship, most people are going to stay on the top" exploring the antenna and satellite dishes. "Most people have common sense and a self-preservation instinct."
While not offering guided tours, Captain's Corner will offer four-hour trips to the wreck with full equipment for $95. With just tanks and weights, the cost is $75. The shop's Sea Eagle is 60 feet long and holds 22 passengers.
For more information, call 296-8865 or go to www.captainscorner.com .
The wreck will be open to recreational divers after officials send teams of clearance divers down to the Vandenberg after she is scuttled to ensure it's secure. That is expected to take a day.
While the dive shops are busy with the excitement of a new wreck, the impact of the scuttling on the Lower Keys lodging industry is a little harder to place.
"Unfortunately, with the timing so close to Memorial Day, it's going to be hard to tell what's holiday traffic and what's other business," says Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West.
She also cited the constantly changing sink window -- weather will determine exactly when the scuttling takes place -- and the subsequent inability of the county Tourist Development Council to market the event.
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: Ship's long journey to watery grave started in 1943
The ship that now bears the name USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg has a long history of serving her country, starting in 1944 when she was acquired by the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the USS Gen. Harry Taylor.
Following is a timeline of the Vandenberg's service:
# 1943: The 523-foot ship is built and launched by Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, Calif.
# 1944: The Navy acquires the vessel and commissions her the USS Gen. Harry Taylor; subsequently, the ship serves as a troop transport vessel during World War II, making ports of call in places such as San Francisco, New Guinea, Pearl Harbor, Guam and the Marshall Islands.
# 1945: On Aug. 5, the Taylor's en route from the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to participate in an invasion of Japan.
# 1945: On Aug. 15, victory over Japan is announced so the Taylor is redirected to New York City. She is the first ship home from the war.
# 1945-1946: Following the war, the Taylor serves as a so-called "magic carpet," transporting American service men and women, along with refugees, to New York City from France, Germany, Egypt and India.
# 1958: The Taylor is placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Texas following more than a decade of going in and out of commission and being transferred from one defense agency to another.
# 1963: Following refurbishment, the Air Force recommissions the Taylor as the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Vandenberg was a fighter pilot for the Air Force in World War II, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Air Force chief of staff.
# 1965-1975: The Vandenberg serves as a missile tracking ship in the Pacific.
# 1977-1982: After having an instrument upgrade, she tracks missile and space shuttle launches in Cape Canaveral.
# 1983: The Vandenberg is transferred to the mothball fleet on the James River in Virginia and struck from the Navy ship registry in 1993.
# 1996: The Vandenberg is leased to Universal Studios for the filming of "Virus" starring Jamie Lee Curtis.
# 1999: Artificial Reefs of the Florida Keys forms to bring the Vandenberg to Key West for eventual scuttling as an artificial reef.
# 2000-2008: ARK works with Key West, Monroe County and state and federal authorities to secure funding -- more than $8 million when all was said and done -- and the ship is stripped of pollutants in preparation for scuttling.
# 2008: In December, a federal judge orders the Vandenberg to be auctioned to satisfy a lien filed by the shipyard and subcontractors that prepared the vessel for scuttling. First State Bank officials go to Norfolk, Va., for the auction and pony up $1.35 million to secure the ship for the Keys.
# 2009: The Vandenberg is towed into Key West in late April and is poised to take the plunge, seven miles south of Key West in 140 feet of water, on Wednesday.
mike_s
Contributor
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
The USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is set to sink Wednesday. Here are some details about the ship and the sink location.
The Vandenberg:
# Weighs 17,120 tons, or 34.24 million pounds.
# Is 522 feet, 10 inches long.
# Has a beam, or width, of 71 feet, 6 inches.
# Has a draft, or the distance between the bottom of the hull and the waterline, of 24 feet.
After sinking, the ship:
# Will sit in 140 feet of water, with 40 feet of required clearance for surface ships. Four anchor-and-chain rigs, each weighing eight tons, will keep it on the ocean floor.
# Will be located at 24.27 north latitude, 81.44 west longitude, approximately seven miles south of Key West International Airport within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
# The superstructure, such as the stacks, masts and antennas, will be between 40 and 50 feet below the surface.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: And down she goes! (hopefully). Go to the News section for complete coverage
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: And down she goes! (hopefully).
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:00 AM EDT
A decade in the works. More than $8 million spent to get it done. A last-minute save by a local bank when a federal judge ordered it sold at public auction.
And Wednesday morning, it could all be over in less than four minutes.
That's when the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is scheduled to be scuttled seven miles off Key West -- and that's how long it's estimated for the 522-foot former military vessel to sink and settle in as an artificial reef.
"This project has taken a long time and there were an amazing array of ever-smaller and ever-more flaming hoops that we were made to jump through. And the project literally was sunk a million times," says Joe Weatherby, a Key West dive captain who envisioned the Vandenberg scuttling more than a decade ago.
"It should all go the way it's supposed to go for the first time in 10 years," says Weatherby, who works for the New Jersey-based Reefmakers LLC.
Weather permitting, it starts Tuesday morning, when tugboats, along with pilot and tender boats, guide the Vandenberg from her berthing at the East Quay Wall at the Truman Waterfront to a point about seven miles south of Key West International Airport.
In transit, officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Key West Police Department and Monroe County Sheriff's Office, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, will maintain a 500-yard perimeter around the behemoth.
That perimeter will remain intact once the Vandenberg arrives at the sink location. Four huge anchors, about eight tons apiece, will secure the former military ship to the ocean floor, 140 feet beneath the surface.
Wednesday morning, plans call for the ship to be scuttled right around 10 a.m. (however, weather and other factors could delay it).
FWC officers will extend the security perimeter to a 1-mile radius around the ship for the sinking and the Federal Aviation Administration will issue a flight restriction for a 1-mile radius and 12,500 feet above the ship
Pre-rigged cutting charges will blast holes in the hull and water pressure will push the cutouts inside the ship. Then the ship will be rushed with water and go down -- if all goes to plan.
In 2002, nothing went to plan.
The 510-foot Spiegel Grove, also an artificial reef, flooded and went down off Key Largo three hours earlier than planned -- and ended up upside down. Marine salvors managed to get it on its side -- and it was finally righted only through the wave power created by Hurricane Dennis in July 2005.
Once the Vandenberg is down, queue the clearance dive teams, led by former Florida Keys Community College dive professor and Artificial Reefs of the Keys board member Bob Smith.
Smith will lead two teams of clearance/safety divers. The first will go down to ensure all of the cutting charges detonated by, essentially, counting the holes. A second team of divers will examine the ship's superstructure to make sure nothing shifted in the course of the scuttling.
Officials expect the clearance process to be fairly smooth and over in a day. Then, officials from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary will install mooring buoys around the wreck.
After that, the Vandenberg is officially open to recreational divers.
The final price tag is $8.6 million. Funding came from the city of Key West, Monroe County, state agencies, the U.S. Maritime Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and private donors.
First State Bank of the Florida Keys, BB&T and Orion banks provided financing.
"Given the proximity to the shore, the clear water and the zip code, I think it's a home-run combination," Weatherby says. "We'll see the economic impact immediately and permanently. As far as overhead goes, this is it."
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: 'Vandenberg' by the numbers
The USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is set to sink Wednesday. Here are some details about the ship and the sink location.
The Vandenberg:
# Weighs 17,120 tons, or 34.24 million pounds.
# Is 522 feet, 10 inches long.
# Has a beam, or width, of 71 feet, 6 inches.
# Has a draft, or the distance between the bottom of the hull and the waterline, of 24 feet.
After sinking, the ship:
# Will sit in 140 feet of water, with 40 feet of required clearance for surface ships. Four anchor-and-chain rigs, each weighing eight tons, will keep it on the ocean floor.
# Will be located at 24.27 north latitude, 81.44 west longitude, approximately seven miles south of Key West International Airport within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
# The superstructure, such as the stacks, masts and antennas, will be between 40 and 50 feet below the surface.
from VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: And down she goes! (hopefully). Go to the News section for complete coverage
VANDENBERG COUNTDOWN: And down she goes! (hopefully).
By SEAN KINNEY
skinney@keynoter.com
Posted - Saturday, May 23, 2009 11:00 AM EDT
A decade in the works. More than $8 million spent to get it done. A last-minute save by a local bank when a federal judge ordered it sold at public auction.
And Wednesday morning, it could all be over in less than four minutes.
That's when the USS Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is scheduled to be scuttled seven miles off Key West -- and that's how long it's estimated for the 522-foot former military vessel to sink and settle in as an artificial reef.
"This project has taken a long time and there were an amazing array of ever-smaller and ever-more flaming hoops that we were made to jump through. And the project literally was sunk a million times," says Joe Weatherby, a Key West dive captain who envisioned the Vandenberg scuttling more than a decade ago.
"It should all go the way it's supposed to go for the first time in 10 years," says Weatherby, who works for the New Jersey-based Reefmakers LLC.
Weather permitting, it starts Tuesday morning, when tugboats, along with pilot and tender boats, guide the Vandenberg from her berthing at the East Quay Wall at the Truman Waterfront to a point about seven miles south of Key West International Airport.
In transit, officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Key West Police Department and Monroe County Sheriff's Office, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, will maintain a 500-yard perimeter around the behemoth.
That perimeter will remain intact once the Vandenberg arrives at the sink location. Four huge anchors, about eight tons apiece, will secure the former military ship to the ocean floor, 140 feet beneath the surface.
Wednesday morning, plans call for the ship to be scuttled right around 10 a.m. (however, weather and other factors could delay it).
FWC officers will extend the security perimeter to a 1-mile radius around the ship for the sinking and the Federal Aviation Administration will issue a flight restriction for a 1-mile radius and 12,500 feet above the ship
Pre-rigged cutting charges will blast holes in the hull and water pressure will push the cutouts inside the ship. Then the ship will be rushed with water and go down -- if all goes to plan.
In 2002, nothing went to plan.
The 510-foot Spiegel Grove, also an artificial reef, flooded and went down off Key Largo three hours earlier than planned -- and ended up upside down. Marine salvors managed to get it on its side -- and it was finally righted only through the wave power created by Hurricane Dennis in July 2005.
Once the Vandenberg is down, queue the clearance dive teams, led by former Florida Keys Community College dive professor and Artificial Reefs of the Keys board member Bob Smith.
Smith will lead two teams of clearance/safety divers. The first will go down to ensure all of the cutting charges detonated by, essentially, counting the holes. A second team of divers will examine the ship's superstructure to make sure nothing shifted in the course of the scuttling.
Officials expect the clearance process to be fairly smooth and over in a day. Then, officials from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary will install mooring buoys around the wreck.
After that, the Vandenberg is officially open to recreational divers.
The final price tag is $8.6 million. Funding came from the city of Key West, Monroe County, state agencies, the U.S. Maritime Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and private donors.
First State Bank of the Florida Keys, BB&T and Orion banks provided financing.
"Given the proximity to the shore, the clear water and the zip code, I think it's a home-run combination," Weatherby says. "We'll see the economic impact immediately and permanently. As far as overhead goes, this is it."
Anyone know when the live feed begins?
mike_s
Contributor
I was wondering if they'd do that.....
Someone emailed me the live feed of the Orriskany right before it sank and I got to watch the sinking "live" from my desk at work.
deepn0va
Contributor
I was in Key West Monday and snapped some of these shots before they took it out this morning.
Cool; I think those holes are big enough for me and all my crap...
deepn0va
Contributor
from the looks and the talks with the guys doing the sinking, those holes are not intended for penetration, since I and most of my friends dive caverns and caves we are all trained to have a guideline to open water. I am not sure how this is one on wreck penetrations.
Most doors have been removed, and the engines are in tact and accessible. the thing that bothers me is the fact those hols in the hull for air & water movement when sinking go straight through to the other side and might invite untrained divers to penetrate. but I am sure that is a risk discussed somewhere in the hundreds of posts about the topic.
looks like it is going to be a monster of a dive. Makes me want to get adv nitrox, deco, and normoxic trimix really soon.
Most doors have been removed, and the engines are in tact and accessible. the thing that bothers me is the fact those hols in the hull for air & water movement when sinking go straight through to the other side and might invite untrained divers to penetrate. but I am sure that is a risk discussed somewhere in the hundreds of posts about the topic.
looks like it is going to be a monster of a dive. Makes me want to get adv nitrox, deco, and normoxic trimix really soon.
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