Interim director of Patriots Point Dick Trammell has his hands full. That’s because he’s preparing for one of the museum’s ships, The Laffey, to make a monumental trip up the Cooper River.
Thanks to a $9.2 million loan from the State Budget and Control Board, emergency repairs to this deteriorating warship will take place beginning at 10:30 p.m., Aug. 19.
Using local tugs, the ship will be floated down river to Deyten’s shipyard, either at the Naval Base facility or their Wando River facility.
Trammell said repairs could take as little as 90 days or as long as six months.
He and other staff members at Patriots Point are working with Charleston Harbor Marina representatives to make the removal of The Laffey feasible. The ship, along with the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham are behind the breakwater at the Charleston Harbor Marina. This means at least four sections of F Dock and some of G Dock will have to be disassembled so the ship can be floated out. The College of Charleston sailing facility will not be affected.
Limited dredging will take place within the area of the ship and the marina.
At least 17 feet of water is needed to move the vessel out.
The tug boats will be moving at about 2 knots which will take three hours to get to the boat yard.
“On Aug. 19, at the highest tide in August, tugs will come in, weather permitting, and gently, cautiously move her out,” Trammell said.
He knows there are folks who will want to witness this event but he urges boaters to keep a good distance away and to stay back. “We don’t want any more wave action than Mother Nature provides and we hope she will be calm and kind,” Trammell said.
Upon return to her birth, there will be a big celebration planned in which boaters can escort her during the return trip and visitors can come out to Patriots Point to greet her.
“This was the ship that would not die. Crews kept her afloat after she was hit by five kamikaze air craft and three 500 pound bombs. That is miraculous and we must continue to celebrate this fine ship,” Trammell said.

The decision
“I am a firm believer in  measuring twice and cutting once,” said Trammell in response to the question posed regarding how this decision to repair the ship came to be.
He said a lot of options were weighed, and a lot of pot shots were made at the Patriots Point Development Authority Board - some disagreed with various options. “But they all had to be considered carefully,” Trammell said.
These ships are on loan from the Navy and survey must be conducted annually by Naval Sea Systems.  
According to Trammell the 2006 and 2007 surveys noted improvements from the previous year as well as praise for maintenance and care of the ships. He said the 2008 survey indicated some rust issues. The report was released to the authority about the same time The Laffey sprung its first leak, he said.
At that point Trammell said the board asked him to pursue the issue and find out to what extent the ship was leaking and what needed to be done.
The survey done by the Navy did not include divers.  So, following state regulations and protocol, professional marine survey diver Joe Lombardi from Boston was hired to assess the extent of the damage.
He reported back that the hull and the scantlings (framework) were in such a condition that he wouldn’t let it even leave the harbor.
One of the options the board considered when deciding whether to repair the ship, was to take the ship offshore and sink her so she could become a memorial reef.
But without Lombardi's blessing to make the 60 mile trip, the Coast Guard wouldn’t approve such a trek and the insurance company wouldn’t underwrite it.
The board and the Patriots Point staff considered and researched other options such as foaming the inside of the hull to buy time until money could come in for repairs. However, the foam must be removed manually before repairs can be made, which would have been another added expense.
In addition, wave action could cause foam to break away from the already comprised hull which might cause water intrusion and possible sinkage within the shipping channel.
Trammell said that whether the ship ended up being sunk or repaired and brought back to Patriots Point, environmental remediation would need to be done to empty the tanks on the ships and clean them.
“It was eventually a no brainer to get the ship repaired and bring her back here,” Trammell said. “Our focus now is to use The Laffey to build attendance and increase repeat visitation.”
State Treasurer Converse Challis, who traveled to Mount Pleasant to tour the Laffey was able to find money set aside for other agencies to use for capital projects. The money was not going to be used and had not been earmarked, so it is on loan to the Patriots Point development Authority to make these needed repairs.
The money is available for 18 months but must be repaid within a period of 18 months.
“The Yorktown has always been the number one attraction at Patriots Point and in 1975 when Yorktown came here, no one understood future maintenance costs and these ships. The only revenue coming in at that time was from ticket sales and things were behind the eight ball from day one by not having anticipated revenue from the very beginning. So these emergency repairs have nothing to do with the current board. It goes back to the beginning,” Trammel said.
In addition to the lack of foresight for maintenance, the ships were allowed to be moored or sunk without conducting any environmental mitigation. But since The Laffey will be sent upstream, her tanks are being drained and steam cleaned and sealed this month.
There are 320 tanks on the Yorktown. If the Patriots Point crew were to do this themselves, it would take 12 years, Trammell explained.

The Laffey
The Laffey is a floating vessel at the museum, unlike the USS Yorktown which is sunk over 20 feet into the mud. At dead low tide the bow touches the mud and she is tied to the dock as well as mooring dolphins.
The Laffey was originally launched Nov. 21, 1943  in Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine. The ship was commissioned Feb. 8, 1944 and decommissioned March 29, 1975.
The Laffey is the last Sumner Class destroyer left afloat in the world.
In an effort to memorialize, maintain and commemorate The Laffey, The USS Laffey Association was formed in 1964 by WWII Veterans. Originally they formed the Association as a way to organize reunions.  But in 1975 when The Laffey was decomissioned and rumored to be disposed of, the Association got together to raise money to find someone to take the ship over to prevent it from being destroyed and sold for salvage.
Today, Sonny Walker is the president and has been for the last eight years. There are over 400 members, many of whom participate in work parties above the ship.
Old shipmates come together, stay on board the ship and conduct maintenance. That began in 1981 when the ship was brought to Patriots Point because she had been sitting at port in Philadelphia for six years, Walker explained, and needed to be made presentable again.
“When shipmates come to see the ship, it is quite emotional,” he said. “When we see the ship we cry because when we left we were young boys and now we’re all grandparents.”
Walker, who lives in Maryland, served on the ship as a radio man from September 1960 to December 1963. When he received word last December that she was sinking, he and another veteran from Pittsburgh came down to see for themselves.
“When we saw it  we were sick and we knew she was gone. But the insistence of the people at Patriots Point to keep her afloat made us ecstatic. It was very emotional to think in December that would be last time I would see her but when we got word that the state treasurer was coming we drove down there again to meet with him and told him sea stories. It was a good meeting,” Walker said.
“And on June 29 we got word that they got the money.”
Walker said these repairs will represent all naval veterans. “We’re not just saving this ship, but saving every ship built just like her,” he said.
“We’re saving The Laffey right now for every person that ever sailed on a destroyer. Those that come to visit Patriots Point, in their minds, they board The Laffey and they are on their ship. It is a really moving experience.”
The association will be on hand Aug. 19 to escort The Laffey to the shipyard.


Patriots Point
In an effort to cut costs at the maritime museum overall, officials at Patriots Point are considering relocating the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham. Trammell said they are in negotiations now with a museum in Florida but details have not been finalized yet.
“The potential loss of the ship will have minimal effects on revenue,” Trammell said.
In addition, a pavilion is being built by the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina entity as part of their expansion program. This venue will be available for event rentals. Additional rooms are planned for that area as well as an additional swimming pool and restaurant. Great American Life runs the resort and marina. The lease is held by The Brothers Company.
Patriots Point is state owned land and the Patriots Point Development Authority Board approves all long term leases and any new construction falls under the zoning and building codes put in place by the town of Mount Pleasant.
Trammell said no other projects are planned at this point “because we're in a holding pattern until we know what the master plan will look like and any future changes will need to blend in that overall design.”
The Patriots Point Gold Links is under new management by a company from Atlanta called Affinity.
Fort Sumter is upgrading their docks where the tour ships depart from to make handicap accessibility easier.
The Patriots Point Foundation has raised $300,000 to go toward a marine science center and plans for that will begin to take shape.
“A number of things have taken a back seat to The Laffey because the situation is so critical,” Trammell said.

The History
The LAFFEY (DD-724) was named in honor of the first LAFFEY (DD-459), sunk at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in Nov. 1942. Both ships were named in honor of Seaman Bartlett Laffey, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient.
The second LAFFEY was built as an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer by Bath Iron Works (Maine). Commissioned February 8, 1944, LAFFEY supported the D-Day landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944. Late that summer, LAFFEY transferred to the Pacific Theater to join the US offensive against Japan. While operating off Okinawa on April 16, 1945, LAFFEY was attacked by 22 Japanese bombers and kamikaze (suicide) aircraft.
Five kamikazes and three bombs struck her and two bombs scored near misses to kill 31 and wound 71 of the 336 man crew. LAFFEY shot down 11 of the attacking aircraft and saved the damage ship which earned her the nickname: “The Ship That Would Not Die.” Laffey, the only surviving Sumner-class destroyer, was added to the Patriots Point fleet in 1981. LAFFEY was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

(The History Provided by Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum).