It was around October 2008 when I heard about The Spike. There was a calling
\nto see if the owners would be willing to donate her and volunteers to clean her.
\nBetween October 2008\u00a0and March 2009, very little was heard on the subject of
\n“Spike.”<\/p>\n
Around mid March 2009, I was brought to see Spike. She was beautiful. Spike Here I began taking photographs of her before anything changed. To document Around April\/May 2009 time frame things began to pick up. We had the boat Well, timing is everything. Fortunately for Jacksonville, Florida history in We get volunteers to come out and start cleaning the vessel. We do this So now we have money, we have a boat, we have volunteers who is going to\u00a0get The city of Jacksonville put out bids to place Spike back into the water so we can Spike was removed from the water about 1999 because she was getting old beyond The bids came in, to bring in a 250 Ton crane, assemble the crane (2 days), place You see where I’m going with this? How much did I say we had? How much just to In steps Joe Kistel. Joe visits the US Coast Guard, the US Navy, the City of Remember, we need to get the boat in the water. Another gift presents itself. a It’s about mid May now\u00a0and a tentative date has been set. Weather permitting, the We are informed the US Coast Guard will not tow Spike for various valid reasons This is a task that keeps one on their tows (A pun). See how fast things change? OK, no Being resourceful, we take some of that grant money and open up bidding to tow. Early July, USCG Inspection. This was an interesting inspection. I believe we were July 13th, 2009, Florida Mechanical begins to arrive Safe Harbor Boys Home with On Wednesday July 15th, Spike was returned to the water and towed under Some articles:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/video\/20066549\/<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/news\/20064048\/detail.html<\/a><\/p>\n
\nis a retired USCG Tender that served Mayport Florida from her commission in
\n1968 to her decommissioning 1988. The US Coast Guard turned Spike over to
\nJacksonville’s Safe Harbor Boys Home<\/a>\u00a0where she was used as a dormatory and
\nfor maritime training.<\/p>\n
\nwhat would never be again, before it it lost. I also began to video the rooms and
\ncompartments, hatches, and passageways.<\/p>\n
\ndo we have a sound location off shore? How are we going to get her out to the
\nunknown location? How are we going to pay for all of this?<\/p>\n
\nartificial reef management and cooperation and understanding from all
\nparties involved, we found some money and we found some more money.
\nBefore we knew it we had about $60,000. Grants were provided by
\nSport Fish Restoration with matching grants from FWC and the city of
\nJacksonville.<\/p>\n
\nby visiting our local dive shops, dive clubs, fishing clubs and spreading
\nthe word. The Jacksonville Offshore Fishing Club,\u00a0JOSFC<\/a> was a big help
\nwith this project. JOSFC help identify a site, one in an area called,
\nHarms Ledge. Harms Ledge is approx 6 rectangular sq. nm area located
\napprox. 25 NM East of the Mayport Jetties. JOSFC also provided over
\n20 boats to shuttle people to the site for the event. Over 100 people
\nattended the event.<\/p>\n
\nher out to the site? How will we place her, explosives, flooding? When will we do
\nthis?<\/p>\n
\ntow her to her new home at Harms Ledge.<\/p>\n
\nher times. All the cleanup of Spike, repairing of holes, welding, cutting, cutting,
\nsawing, scraping, sweeping happened while Spike was sitting on land.<\/p>\n
\nthe boat in the water (1 day), disassemble the crane, (2 days) somewhere between
\n$60-80K.<\/p>\n
\nplace her in the water? We still have to get her towed and placed. What will we do?<\/p>\n
\nJacksonville Sherrifs Office, JSO, Dive Shops, the JOSFC, local contractors, dive
\nclubs, The Jacksonville Reef Reseacrh Team, JRRT<\/a> and comes back with the USCG
\n\u00a0will tow and place Spike. The USN will film from the air and provide crowd control.
\nThe USCG will also provide a cutter to carry the young men from Safe Harbor
\nBoys Home and the Navy will provide the explosive team and JSO will provide
\npolice escort.\u00a0 That was not an easy task. There is more..<\/p>\n
\nJacksonville Contractor, Florida Mechanical volunteer the crew and the 250 ton
\ncrane. That was a $60-80 donation!! That on top of the money received from the
\ngrants and things are really looking up.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0date has been set for a week near the end of June.\u00a0 Cleaning continues.<\/p>\n
\nand the use of explosives\u00a0is out the window, now what? We have a boat that is
\ncleaned, about to be patched up (welding), final touches in preparation for that day
\n[xr_video id=”2e399f46e906489eb636b51a4019e765″ size=”sm”]
\nand we no longer have a method to get Spike out to her new duty station and on the
\nbottom.<\/p>\n
\nproblem, we can move the date if neccessary but the owners would like to see the
\nvessel in the water by the end of June. We end of moving the date from June to July,
\naiming for the week of July 12-18th, 2009.<\/p>\n
\nThanks to Max Moody shipyard and the use of Bulldog, we now had a means to get
\nSpike out to her destination. We still need to get her down. Explosive are out, that
\nleaves flooding. We weld into the sides of Spike, below the water level, four values.
\nTwo on the starboard, two on the port. Also holes were made just above the water
\nline and softpatched. The idea was to first remove the softpatches, then open the
\nvalues. The values would allow water in, filling the vessel until the water level
\nreached the area of the holes just reveiled, by removing the soft patches.<\/p>\n
\nalmost finished when down in the engineering compartment, in the middle of the
\ndeck was a hatch. It was sealed with like 24 bolts. Why is it here? What could be
\nunderneath the hatch? Noticing a pipe coming up and out from this 2x3x1 boxed
\ncompartment. The pipe looked to be about a 2″ diameter. We cut the pipe off, place
\na stick down- through the pipe, into this void, pull the stick out and it’s covered with
\nabout 4-5″ of petrolium. Inspection failed. Later the bolts were removed and over
\n34 gallons of petrolium was removed. Our second inspection will be Monday\u00a0July
\n13th.<\/p>\n
\n13 flat bed trucks carrying peices of the 250 ton crane. It took two days to assemble
\nthe crane.<\/p>\n
\nChelsie’s power and Bulldogs guidance to Max Moody’s ship yard where she will
\nbe fitted with three anchors for Thursday, July 17th 2009 scheduled tow and
\nplacement.<\/p>\n