BREAKING NEWS: UPDATE on the Battleship Texas move…
I have been trying to keep y’all up-to-date about what I am hearing about the pending move of the Battleship Texas from its San Jacinto Battleground slip to a drydock in Galveston. And here is the latest, this from a presentation that I got to hear in a LSHSC meeting on Tuesday.
The current working date for the move is August 31. This date could of course change due to any number of factors, and in fact it has already been moved back two weeks due to drydock preps being not quite ready.
The plan is to move the ship out of her berth before daybreak on that morning, and if all goes well they hope to have her in the drydock by mid-afternoon. And so, if you are in fact planning to head out onto the bay to watch her go by, this timeline should give you some idea of when she might reach the mid-bay region.
At the moment the CG plans to establish a 1000-foot “Moving Safety Zone” all around the vessel, and please do NOT in any way crowd that zone!!! (Note: for your reference, 1000 feet is the same as the total width of the HSC between the channel markers.) I am sure that there will be plenty of security out there to keep folks away, but this is going to be such a delicate operation that they sure do not need any recreational vessels getting in the way!
Incredible preparations are being made by the contractor in charge of this move, all to minimize the risks of anything bad happening with a very fragile and leaky vessel. And who knows how much more leaky it is perhaps going to get once it starts moving! But as the presenter said on Tuesday, they are “preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best”, and so cross your fingers!!!"