I can also make out an "NE" on it... making it possibly New York or New Jersey (NY being more probable with the space given) does anyone else think that this may have been a rescue craft?
Well, hell! I used to live in Seattle and they talked endlessly about a rail. So, nothing yet? I also used to live in Salt Lake City and even THEY finally got a rail. Seattle could use it so much more. That's one of the reasons my spouse and I finally left that beautiful city - the traffic was a true nightmare. :-(
To answer your question Camo, it's because the ships can still partialysupport their own weight in the water, it would take a lot of fuel and machenery to pull one of these ships out onto a drydock for scraping.
Its true that these beautiful ships are now jsut rusting away.. kinda reminds me of Dr. Ballard's book LOST LINERS. I'm wondering about the history behind all of thse ships. It probabily isn't costing the taxpayers anything, but i wish one of thse could be restored and diplaied as a museum at the sight itself, shoinw the life and death of a ship.
Too true! One year we had a house built and ours was the first one done in the neighborhood. Two adjacent neighborhoods were being built at the same time, and after we moved in we would stroll through all three neighborhoods most evenings and look at the progress. For some reason the construction companies were too damn cheap to put up Port-A-Potties, so the hygiene habits of the construction workers were fairly obvious to anyone who 'splored. :-)
My guess is that these would be the "steam drums" for the boilers. The "nipples" are actually strongbacks holding the access dorrs in place - the access doors being for umm...access.... for repairs, cleaning, etc.