On 7 May 2016 at 21:52, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:

> Snorkels on USN subs built in the early '60's?
>
> I thought the last non-nuclear powered subs were retired before 1970
> but now it appears that the USN was still operating some many years
> later?

OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) has the last non-nuclear
combat sub. Both the last built and the last to be decommissioned.

USS Blueback. Launched in 1959, decommisioned in October 1990. and in
1994, she was towed to OMSI where she has been on display ever since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blueback_%28SS-581%29

There were record floods a few years after she was "installed" at
OMSI. Since the sub is tied up at a dock and had a special access
hatch added in the side so tours didn't have to use the deck hatches,
some folks were a bit worried.

But they just sealed that hatch and let her ride out the floods at
dock. there's a rumor some former Navy guys who work with her at the
museum suggested going aboard as crew and riding things out on the
bottom... but it was vetoed.

BTW for any of you who've been to Portland, those floods got *higher*
than the seawall on the other side of the river. They had to bolt
plywood to the railings to keep the river out of downtown.

Afterwards, they made a bunch of special slabs (steel? Concrete?)
that could be more easily attached for floods and removed afterwards.

About a dozen years later we had record floods again. But nobody
remembered where the slabs were. It's thought that sometime in the
interim, somebody who didn't know what they were sold them off as
scrap. But nobody knows for sure.

I can see several ObTravs in this. A decommisioned ship at some
museum (maybe in orbit?) is threatened by something (maybe bad
flares?) and former crew offer to take it out to someplace safe
(maybe the far side of a moon or something). Handwave that the old
and delicate gear (or maybe some exhibits) would be damaged by the
radiation or some such.

Or maybe the PCs get offered the job of ferrying the ship to the
museum. Or get begged to take it out to that "safe place".

The bit with the lost slabs could be an interesting side bit on an
adventure. somebody had some widgets made for a rare occurence. And
now that it's going to happen again, everybody is scrambling to find
them...

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com