"HH HESS" in the Brownsville Ship Graveyard

One of the survey ships, a good one, for a time. Apparently an engineer lit off a boiler without checking the glass and melted the tubes! I never even saw this ship, though many I knew were aboard. Two of my favorite ships also ended up in Brownsville, probably this place. Kind of like watching old friends die.

very U - TURN!

The H.H. Hess is also such a sad case. :-(

Laid down in 1963 as the commercial steamship SS Canadian Mail, this ship was aquired by the US Navy in 1977, converted into a Hydrographic Survey Ship and placed into service with the Military Sealift Command.

She served with the MSC until 1992 when she was deactivated, towed to Suisun Bay and placed into the Ready Reserve Fleet, where she remained until she was withdrawn from the RRF in 2003.

After failing to qualify for preservation as a historic ship in 2006, the H.H. Hess was sold for scrapping in 2010 and departed for ESCO Marine of Brownsville TX, in January 2011.

A friend, once captain of the Hess for a time replied to my sending him a link to your photo:

Gives me a strange feeling.

Two cable ships I knew well and liked very much ended up in one of those ship slaughter slips. I have the photos and do not like to look at them. I know they are not but ships to me are as "alive" as anything can be that is not animal or plant. I am sure I could be transported to some I knew well and wake up in the dark knowing which one from all the familiar noises and "feel" of them.

I served on this ship from Dec 1977 to May 1980. I was on it when it left San Diego after it's conversion to an oceanographic unit. Hate to see it getting cut up.

Shore dwellers have friends, lovers, and relations. Mariners also have ships.

Eloquently put by James H. Cobb in his fictional book, Sea Strike; though I would add animal companions.