I read somewhere that dockage expense for SSUS is over $1000/day. Why would anyone pay this without a game plan? I wish Carnival would buy it and put 2 whale tails on the stacks!
Two months is optimistic for completing all the inspections needed on the steam plants unless the work was being done 24/7 like we do for our refueling outages at ye olde nuclear plant. Even with proper layup, degradation of the piping and valves would be a particular concern. So would warping of the turbine shafts from being set in one position for so long without being on the turning gear every so often. We are on the verge of starting up our Unit 1 reactor after 20 years of layup. That main turbine needed lots of work which took a long time to complete.
But I do agree that there are many skilled craft out there who can do the work. Most of the industrialized world's electricity is supplied via steam turbines.
Originally posted by Dave Beers:
Two months is optimistic for completing all the inspections needed on the steam plants unless the work was being done 24/7 like we do for our refueling outages at ye olde nuclear plant. Even with proper layup, degradation of the piping and valves would be a particular concern. So would warping of the turbine shafts from being set in one position for so long without being on the turning gear every so often. We are on the verge of starting up our Unit 1 reactor after 20 years of layup. That main turbine needed lots of work which took a long time to complete.
But I do agree that there are many skilled craft out there who can do the work. Most of the industrialized world's electricity is supplied via steam turbines.
I was considering 24/7. And yes, two months is quick, but I think it can be done at a facility large enough to handle the job. The best example for cruise ships that I can think of is the refurbishment done to the SS Norway in 1979, when NCL brought the SS France back into service from mothballs. It took 10 months for 2,000 workers to renovated the ship at the cost of $100 million.
But not all that 10 months was for inspecting the main engines and returning them into service. Just about all the auxiliary engines and equipment were completely torn out and replaced with new equipment. Major changes were also made to both the public spaces and cabins.
My two months estimate was for getting everything, as it is, back into service not changing a thing.
I realize that propulsion and other design changes will have to be made. Never-the-less, a complete refurbishment should take far less time than it took the SS Norway, because the interiors spaces of the SS United States have been stripped already.
Doubling my 2 months estimation (4 months) surely can be met, and an additional month or two might be long enough for the entire refurbishment. It would be a poor shipyard if it couldn't better the time of refurbishing the SS Norway.
Originally posted by Ron Clark:
It would be a poor shipyard if it couldn't better the time of refurbishing the SS Norway.
Ron, you're comparing the addition of a few dozen cabins to an existing indoor promenade deck to creating/rebuilding all the interiors of an entire ship.
Even without considering the work needed to the engines, there is no way SSUS' interiors can be created in just a few months.
Originally posted by Ron Clark:
It would be a poor shipyard if it couldn't better the time of refurbishing the SS Norway.
Ron, you're comparing the addition of a few dozen cabins to an existing indoor promenade deck to creating/rebuilding all the interiors of an entire ship.
Even without considering the work needed to the engines, there is no way SSUS' interiors can be created in just a few months.
The original question was about getting the existing steam engines operational again, not the entire ship.
I agree, it will take much longer to refurbish the entire ship, and I believe it can be done is less time than it took to refurbish the SS Norway. Prefabrication techniques are much more advance today than they were in 1979.
Don't forget, waste handling systems, air conditioning systems, and more electric generation will probably be required to power these extra systems needed by ships sailing today.
Could be done and how long it will actually take, is two different things.
I am fortunate to know a man who worked at Newport News Shipbuilding for many years, and he has stories to tell about the SSUS. He knew others who helped build the ship...and sadly most of them are now gone.
I am so proud to have some pieces from the ship - a lifejacket and some glasses and other stuff.
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First of all I'd be VERY suprised if NCL does anything with the Big U. Most people are under the assumption that she and the Indy were purchased as an 'insurance policy' to make sure no other company grabbed them while NCL America was starting-up and thinking that they were going to corner a new market. Secondly, if by a miracle that NCL pulls off the unthinkable and starts refurbing her I seriously doubt her original powerplant is going to be retained. After Norway's accident, no corporation is going to take a gamble on boilers that are 50+ years old. The company simply can't afford NOT to re-engine the ship. Unfortunately this is business logic behind all these things and as we all know they never go hand-in-hand with the historians, fans and the like.
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