Bay Ship & Yacht, located in Alameda on San Francisco Bay, has completed hydro-blasting the hull and superstructure, and finished its seawirthiness inspection of, the decommissioned USS Florikan.
Published: September, 2010
Bay Ship & Yacht, located in Alameda on San Francisco Bay, has completed hydro-blasting the hull and superstructure, and finished its seawirthiness inspection of, the decommissioned USS Florikan. The ship, shown above, was brought to the shipyard’s 388’ x 84’ drydock prior to being towed to Texas for scrapping. The Florikan will be one less ship in the U.S. Maritime Administration’s Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, which has been the subject of much concern and a high-profile environmental lawsuit. Originally numbering more than 100 ships, the “ghost fleet” has now been reduced to only 57 ships, as one ship after another has been removed from the fleet, cleaned at a local shipyard to comply with the Coast Guard-enforced Invasive Species Act, and towed to Texas for scrapping. There are currently no licensed facilities for scrapping ships on the west coast; however, plans are underway to establish a ship recycling facility at the former U.S. Navy facility at Mare Island in Vallejo.
The Florikan was a Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship. She was launched in June 1942 by Moore Dry Dock Co., a shipyard once located in Oakland, across the estuary from Bay Ship & Yacht’s present shipyard in Alameda. During World War II, the Florikan served at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Kiska, Alaska. She has a displacement of 1,780 long tons, a length of 251 feet, a beam of 42 feet, and a draft of 14 feet, 3 inches.
