SS Fredericksburg (1958)
SS Fredericksburg | |
History | |
---|---|
Name: | SS Fredericksburg |
Operator: |
|
Builder: | Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi |
Yard number: | 1030 |
Launched: | as Eagle Courier |
Acquired: | 10 October 1958 |
Renamed: | Fredericksburg, 1976 |
Homeport: | Wilmington, Delaware |
Identification: | IMO number: 5095713 |
Fate: | Scrapped, 16 April 2004 |
General characteristics | |
Type: | T5-S-12b Tanker |
Tonnage: |
|
Displacement: | 26,500 long tons (26,925 t) |
Length: | 651 ft 7 in (198.60 m) o/a |
Beam: | 102 ft (31 m) |
Draft: | 36 ft (11 m) |
Propulsion: | Kawasaki Steam |
Speed: | 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) |
Notes: | Single bottom, double sided hull |
SS Fredericksburg was a single-hulled T5-S-12b oil tanker, originally named the Eagle Courier. The ship was built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi as hull number 1030 and delivered on 10 October 1958.[1] The ship was scrapped in Chittagong, Bangladesh on 16 April 2004.[2][3]
From delivery in 1958 until 1976, the ship was operated by Eagle Carriers. In 1976, she was bought by Keystone Shipping Company and renamed Fredericksburg. She continued to operate as a coastal tanker until 2004.
Fredericksburg was for some time the oldest tanker in the U.S. fleet, and its age showed. She was subject to a number of refittings and retrofittings, such as the 1983 forecastle overhaul.[4] Also, towards the end of her career, she had a number of safety problems. For example, on 10 June 1999 when loaded, after experiencing a steering failure, she "grounded under power at mile forty-three in the Columbia River." Fortunately, she "came ashore in an area of the river characterized by soft mud banks and suffered no damage."[5]
Some of Fredericksburg's problems were detailed in this 1 January 2003 article "Puget Sound's Rustbuckets:"
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Fredericksburg has a safety rap sheet a mile long. The Coast Guard cited it for two deficiencies—improper boiler maintenance and damaged hull plates from an encounter with a Houston dock—in 2002 and investigated 26 minor accidents and oil discharges in the preceding nine years. That tally is much longer than the Coast Guard sheet on every younger tanker I examined.[4]
Finally, although "its OPA90 phase-out date is 8-Dec-05, Keystone Tankships will scrap the tanker Fredericksburg rather than incur the cost of its next dry-docking survey, which is due this month (2/6)."[6] In 2004, she was filled with grain in the port of Houston and sailed to Chittagong, Bangladesh where she was driven onto the beach and scrapped. The selling price was reportedly $425 per light displacement ton or 3.7 million U.S. dollars.[7] Fredericksburg was joined by her sister ship Chilbar at the scrapyard later that year.[8]
References
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External links
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