Not Smooth Sailing

They tried pulling the USS Intrepid out of her berth today. The voyage went about 15 feet before the ship stuck fast in the mud. The attempt has been stopped for the day as the tide began to fall.

The mission was scrubbed for the day at around 10:30 a.m. as the tide went down, said Dan Bender, a Coast Guard spokesman. There was no immediate word when the effort would resume.

After 24 years at the same pier on Manhattan's West Side, the World War II warship began inching backward out of its berth, but moved only about 15 feet before its giant propellers jammed in the thick mud. The decommissioned war ship no longer has engines of its own.

"We knew it was not going to come out like a cruise ship," said Matt Woods, the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum's vice president for operations.

Six tugboats had strained to move the giant ship.

"We were able to move her 15 feet, and then she came to a halt. We tried to add more power with another tugboat but we couldn't wiggle her free," said Jeffrey McAllister, the chief pilot of the tugboat operation.

"We were missing our open window. We had to give up because the tides were going down," he added. "She was moving, we were hopeful, she started to creep along but then she stopped."

"It was very disappointing," said McAllister.

Monday's departure was timed to take advantage of the yearly high tide so the tugs could pull the 27,000-ton ship out of the slip where it has rested in up to 17 feet of mud. Removal of 600 tons of water from the Intrepid's ballast tanks gave the ship added buoyancy, and dredges removed 15,000 cubic yards of mud to create a channel from dockside to deeper water.

Hmmmm. I don't think they dredged quite enough if the props stuck.