US navy ships find way to scrap yard without a single accomplishment

VIRGINIA (Scrap Monster): United States’ two Navy ships built at a cost of $300 million are now moving to Texas scrap yard for recycling without even gone for a single mission.

The 600-foot-plus oiler ships are being towed to International Ship breaking Limited in Brownsville, Texas, where they will be cut up and their innards removed, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reported Friday. The steel and other metals will be sold as recycled products.

The ships Isherwood and Eckford were part of an 18-ship class known as the Henry J. Kaiser fleet of replenishment oilers serving Navy vessels around the globe.

The two were built at the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. in Philadelphia, which defaulted on its Navy contract in 1989. The ships were sent to Florida to be finished, but disputes over costs and materials ended that contract four years later, according to records.

The two ships eventually were mothballed in the James River fleet.

With the ships' departure from Virginia waters, the U.S. Maritime Administration will also close one of its most contentious disposal contracts ever.

In 2003, the Maritime Administration announced a $17.8 million contract with Able UK, a shipyard in northeastern England, to dismantle 13 ships from the James River fleet. The Isherwood and Eckford were tossed in to sweeten the deal.

The theory was that Able UK would finish construction of the two oilers and sell them to a NATO ally or another friendly country.

The oilers, however, are single-hulled ships, instead of the modern double-hulled standard.

Able UK had never demolished a ship before and did not have permits to do so at the time.

Only a fraction of the ships arrived at the yard off the North Sea. The rest were blocked by legal orders and political maneuvering. chron.com reported.