USS Forrestal, Navy's first 'supercarrier,' sold for one cent

[Big Dad]

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/10/23/USS-Forrestal-Navys-first-supercarrier-to-be-scrapped/UPI-16381382560484/

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, out of service for 20 years, is being sold to a Brownsville, Texas, scrap company for a penny, the Navy says.
All Star Metals bid $0.01 for the job, the Navy said in a news release Tuesday. The company's offer was based on its estimate of how much it can net from the sale of metal from the Forrestal.

The Forrestal, the first of the Navy's "supercarriers," was launched in December 1954 in Newport News, Va., and commissioned on Sept. 29, 1955. It was named after James V. Forrestal, the last Navy secretary to sit in the cabinet and the first secretary of defense, who committed suicide in 1949.

The carrier was decommissioned in 1993. The Navy offered to donate it as a museum or memorial but no suitable organizations offered to take the vessel.

The Forrestal is currently docked in Philadelphia.



Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/...#ixzz2ibzP9Lcu










My take, seriously ...1 penny ??

It is bullshit on so many levels

[YALE]

That may be accurate. It's probably FULL of asbestos.

[helosailor]

What a slap in the face to the memory of the 134 men that died in the fire, and the others that were gravely injured.

[Binky]

What a slap in the face to the memory of the 134 men that died in the fire, and the others that were gravely injured.

Money doesnt equal respect.

It costs money to maintain even as a drydocked museum. Where ya goona park it?

if everyone turned everything into a goddamned memorial we'd be tripping over shit to go to the bathroom.

Better let it go to scrap and be reused than waste away or sunk as an artificial reef. (Which still costs a ton of money in cleanup)

[helosailor]

I understand that, but one stinking penny? Come on.
"The company's offer was based on its estimate of how much it can net from the sale of metal from the Forrestal." I find that VERY hard to believe.

[TeeShock]

Im just glad the gov didnt find a way to pay someone to scrap it.

[whitetrash]

I understand that, but one stinking penny? Come on.
"The company's offer was based on its estimate of how much it can net from the sale of metal from the Forrestal." I find that VERY hard to believe.

After the cost of moving it, labor, ect, I can see it not being a huge profit.

[Binky]

After the cost of moving it, labor, ect, I can see it not being a huge profit.

Use the Oriskany as an example:

Ship remediation (BMP-related) $8.28M
Flight deck remediation (BMP-related) $3.61M
PCB model and risk assessment development (BMP-related) $3.74M
Towing and berthing $3.07M
Scuttling preparation and execution $4.90M

$15 million to clean it up and get all of the crap out.
$8 million just to tow and sink it.

Nobody wanted it as a museum and there wasn't a $23 million budget for sinking it somewhere else in the world.

It uses a ton of resources and labor to dismantle a ship so whoever buys it is going to be spending a metric shit ton of money to break it down into scrap. After they sell the scrap metal and subtract their costs - theres the profit.

Scrap metal is cheap and labor is expensive. Best to get the source of the material as cheap as possible.

Would people still be upset if it was sold for $100,000? $1,000,000? At that point the only difference is coddling your sensitive emotions. Harden the fuck up, its just a boat.

[1carcrazyguy]

The company will probably sell it to Mexico and they will drag it from Brownsville.

[Baron Von Crowder]

One cent, sounds like nobody even wanted to place a bid if they won it for one cent.

[Steve@CJPP]

The carrier I served on for 5 years uses the anchors from the Forrestal. As an ABH I can't tell you how many times they made us watch the video of the fire from that accident. What we learned about fighting fires in the Hangar Bay/Flight Deck comes from that incident or should I say a lot of what we do now is based off what they didn't do or have back then.

[Chas_svo]

Sad, but it is a semi-common fact. I know where a static-displayed F111 is that supposedly contains more than $1M in gold in it. The problem is the extraction would cost $2-2.5M.

[8mpg]

One cent, sounds like nobody even wanted to place a bid if they won it for one cent.

ding... This company was the only ones dumb enough to to scrap it

[racrguy]

One cent, sounds like nobody even wanted to place a bid if they won it for one cent.

ding... This company was the only ones dumb enough to to scrap it

Either that or all the others wanted the government to pay them for it.

[46Tbird]

Either that or all the others wanted the government to pay them for it.

This, is the 'ding'....

A bunch of scrappers expected to get paid to take it, cut it up, and make a profit.

BTW.. it still taxpayers a lot of coin to get a scrapper to take it. It's been sitting on the books for years and can you imagine the red tape, lawyers, and related bureaucracy in getting rid of an aircraft carrier?