At the March 31, 2010 meeting of the New Jersey Council of Diving Clubs, a representative of the State of New Jersey's Artificial Reef Program was asked about potential future candidates. He thought that the "United States" wouldn't be an interesting and useful reef as the aluminum superstructure wouldn't last long in salt water, and would probably be removed and scrapped to help pay for the sinking. The cruiser "Olympia" would be a better candidate, and might be available soon.

I hope not.

The Friends of the Cruiser Olympia have announced that they are now umbrelled by a New York group and can officially start collecting money for the Olympia. The Friends website is at:

http://www.fotco.org

The ship itself will be closed to the public by the current museum owner in September.

EDIT: thinking about this some more; the Olympia would need major hull repairs just to safely make the tow out to the ocean to be sunk. If someone is willing to pull those sort of dollars into her, why no preserve it above water as a museum instead?

With respect to the Olympia, can we think out of the box a little bit here? One museum I am LONG overdue for a return visit to, and have never taken my youngest son to, is Shelburne.

Could the Olympia be brought up on dry land somewhere, and placed in a grassy "drydock" like Ticonderoga? I know the Olympia is larger than the'Ti', but not really that much larger; at least not on the same scale as the New Jersey across the river.

For that matter, could a cofferdam be built around both Olympia and Becuna, making their present location dry land, and supporting them on cradles? It seems it should be a lot cheaper than 30 million, IIRC, in hull repairs for the Olympia. If the water is a problem for the ship's long-term survival, get it out of the water.

I can just see it now. Amtrak suspends service on the NEC for a day, to allow a ship to pulled across the NEC, on its own rails, into a park west of the line. (Yes, I know, I'm about six weeks late with this one -)

No, you're more than 30 years late with this one. McHugh Bros. hauled an oil refinery vessel from a Delaware River dock near Chester, Pa. to the B&O railroad using a temporary grade crossing across the NorthEast Corridor. It was too big to fit under the catenary if sitting on a flat car, and was too long for any depressed center flat car. Amtrak had to raise their wires at the point of crossing and tow some late evening trains with Diesels. I think this was before the late night mail trains started running, so the line could be entirely blocked for a time between the passages of the Night Owl in either direction without canceling any passenger trains!

I like these ideas very, very much. They get you out of the 20 year cycle of repainting and replacing thining hull plates. It is what they did with the Great Britian; it is actually on display in the very drydock she was built in. There are also plans under way to build a cofferdam around the Battleship Texas and display it on dry land; although there is opposition because it is docked in the middle of a historic battleground.

Floating ships are like operating steam locomotives. You have to do continual maintenance on them; the only way to get out of that cycle is to stop running steam locomotives and get the ships out of water. You are then reduced to the much less expensive task of keeping them painted.