WASHINGTON - Today, the Navy awarded a contract for the towing
and dismantling of the decommissioned aircraft carrier Ranger (CV 61) to
International Shipbreaking Ltd.
Under the contract, the company will be paid $0.01. The price
reflects the net price proposed by International Shipbreaking, which considered
the estimated proceeds from the sale of the scrap metal to be generated from
dismantling. This is not a sales contract, it is a procurement contract. $0.01
is the lowest price the Navy could possibly have paid the contractor for towing
and dismantling the ship.
The ship will be towed from the Navy's inactive ships maintenance
facility in Bremerton, Washington, to International Shipbreaking Ltd.'s ship
dismantling facility in Brownsville, Texas for complete dismantling and
recycling.
The ship is expected to depart Bremerton via tow in January or
February 2015, and arrive in Brownsville after four to five months. The ship is
too large for passage through the Panama Canal and must be towed around South
America.
Ranger was the third Forrestal class aircraft carrier to be built.
The ship was laid down Aug. 2, 1954, by Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock
Co., Newport News, Virginia, and commissioned at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on
Aug. 10, 1957. Ranger was the only ship of the Forrestal class to spend its
entire career in the Pacific. The ship made a total of 22 Western Pacific
deployments, was an active participant in the Vietnam War, and was the only West
Coast-based carrier to deploy in support of Operation Desert Storm.
Ranger was decommissioned July 10, 1993, after more than 35 years
of service. It served as a retention asset for potential future reactivation
until stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 8, 2004, and redesigned
for donation. After eight years on donation hold, the USS Ranger Foundation was
unable to raise the necessary funds to convert the ship into a museum or to
overcome the physical obstacles of transporting her up the Columbia River to
Fairview, Oregon. As a result, the Ranger was removed from the
list of ships available for dismantling and designated for dismantling.
While there are many veterans with strong desires that the Navy not
scrap the ship they served on, there were no states, municipalities or
non-profit organizations with a viable plan seeking to save the ship. The Navy
cannot donate a vessel unless the application fully meets the Navy's minimum
requirements for donation, and cannot retain inactive ships
indefinitely.
For more information about ex-Ranger, please contact Chris Johnson
at 757-593-3891.