History TV: SS United States and Queen Mary

e e [Music] [Music] [Music] all right good evening everyone it is Friday night it is 7 PM that can only mean one thing we are live for what will probably be longer than a 1-hour live stream this week uh we had a little technical difficulties there but we are underway of course as you guys can see Steve is back with me uh Steve welcome back to the SS allamerican travels if anybody for any reason cannot hear Steve please let me know uh because we we had like I said we had a few technical glitches to start off with but um here we are Steve how have you been my friend good um there's lots of people in a different chat um Mark can you let them know that uh we restarted uh the stream because like I said we had some technical issues there uh if you could get everyone yeah I'm not sure exactly what happen there but um we we are underway uh yeah I didn't show it at first either I'm I'm not sure exactly what happened there um max says they saying they can't hear you H that is definitely not good no Steve voice uh let's see they should be able to hear you just fine um let's try something else here okay let's see if uh if this might make a difference I just changed up something real quick uh testing one two testing one two can can you guys hear Steve now still can't hear him but that might be I still can't hear you see nothing has changed here on this end oh wait a minute wait go I think we got you all right just a delay okay okay one one issue care of it's it's been uh okay uh LV priden welcome aboard uh he says he caught the test so now everyone can hear you so um that might present a little issue for our pictures um I I had to switch to basically where I'm showing uh the entire desktop okay so uh if you know a way where we can fit the um let me try something here uh they won't be able to hear you again for a second I'm going to try something real quick so let's see nope none of that none of that let's see possible idea we could drop my cam and I could share screen and I could show the pictures from my end let me let me try something else real quick before we do that there okay so this is one way we can do it well better not do that CU then I'll I'll lose you guys oh I see a picture yes so think I got a way figured out for us to do it all right very good so I'm okay so uh we're just going to do it this way uh for now all right so uh before we get into all the pictures um yeah so uh I know it's been a while since you've been here Steve um can you give everyone a little insight into uh your affiliation with the Queen Mary past and present um I you are the person that uh as far as people I know personally um no one knows more about the Queen Mary uh than you do so how did that come to be it didn't come easily um well golly uh I my family or my father and his half brother traveled to the Queen Mary or traveled on the Queen Mary to the United States they immigrated to the US in 1959 so that immediately even as a little kid brought me into the entrance of the ship um visited it many times as a you know as a child field trips in grade school uh started in the 1990s I thought well I'm gonna go ahead and see if I can get a job on board with looking to get a tour guide job uh I worked my way up from an attractions attendant to uh a waiter with the banquet Department to a waiter in the Chelsea to finally getting to be uh a tour guide was a tour guide for a couple years 1996 1997 uh left being a tour guide um I my field of expertise is all mod of Transportation but trains have been always like the number one and uh left to go to Iowa for about a year uh to do a a new train operation out there and uh so I came back to the ship in '98 I was uh between working in some of the shops I was also working for uh for RMS foundation help them gather together artifacts for the uh branded grill for the one of the captain's uh for the captain's bedroom and then uh golly uh had a long uh run with the RMS uh doing a lot of various you know uh assistance on on artifacts and uh got to know Robin Jacobs who owns fog Bank Industrial Arts he recreated the uh Builder plat that's on the B on the Sund deck Ford Super structure and uh we started a uh Boiler Room project called the Yaro project um was hoping to get it started didn't go but uh we are possibly going to renew that idea and golly here we go 19 or 2024 now and uh go just many years to come right you worked on the Queen Mary at some point Didn't you oh yeah I was I was a tour guide uh um yeah all those different types of jobs and then in in addition uh I worked for RMS uh to do research for the Yaro project did projects in restoration with the uh the brand grill in 98 yeah so there been many a job on board and and through all of that uh you've come to have you know the knowledge that you have of the ship just a little bit yeah yeah just a little bit and you still freak with her quite a bit though as I as I know as much as I can in fact I'm hoping to be there next week for a few days so excellent so um should we start with the queen or should we go with the the the big news that popped today well I think we should probably start with the big news yeah uh I think so too so um we we are going to be discussing both the Queen Mary and the SS United States my my original concept for this discussion was um how do we get to the point at this point in present day where we are with both ships one of them seems to be safe and has a future the other one uh it depends on how you describe uh future so having said that uh some uh there's an article that came out from uh some place called get the coast this morning uh which I assume is a local Florida news outlet and according to this article the SS United States has been purchased by a county in Florida uh with the intent to sync her as an artificial Reef um I'm a little skeptical of this and I'll explain why and you know feel free to chime in whenever you feel like it's Steve um I just I find it odd that no other media Outlet since this article has come out and this is over 12 hours ago now that this article came out no one uh including the conservancy and as far as I know no County official uh withed County there's no press releases of any kind from anyone which it's I'm not saying this is not possible at all you know we've known for weeks this is a possibility and it very well could happen but I guess I'm just I want to I want to wait for an official word from someone in it's in particular the people who as of right now still legally own the ship which is the Conservancy um what are your thoughts with everything that's been going on today so as soon as I found out about it I reached out to uh a couple people with the Conservancy wanted to find out if there was even a hint that there might be some truth to it um I get the vibe that there is probably some proof to it however I think that the news was leaked out um and obviously because this is a legal uh contract situation you you can't really speak out publicly so so I have I'm going to read it out to everybody I have the official statement from the SS United States Conservancy about today's topic so I'll go ahead and I'll read that um as we've indicated previously in an urgent effort to comply with the judge's initial ruling and subsequent Hearing in the US District Court the Conservancy has been in discussions on a range of scenarios for the ship's future including proposals to deploy the SS United States as an artificial Reef in tandem with a landbased museum negotiations with the Okaloosa County have been advancing positively on a confidential basis we value the County's appreciation of the historical importance of the SS United States their extensive experience in respectfully and effectively deploying artificial reefs and their desire to preserve the ship's extraordinary Legacy however it is inappropriate for the Conservancy to comment further until the akaloa board of County Commissioners considers this cons considers the contingent contract so that is the official word from the ssus conservant which according to that article um this board uh for the county is supposed to meet on Tuesday and ratify this contract agreement right so um again not saying it's not going to happen uh we've known this could be a possibility um right uh not the best case scenario obviously for those of us who are uh ship enthusiasts uh ocean liner warship whatever your preference is yeah but also not the worst case scenario um your thoughts um well I I I will admit that this is kind of an emotional news break knew it was you know the possibility was there but you know it is it does tug it the heart brings um going on that though I would say that having an artificial Reef as her end I think would be the best fitting situation for her and if they are in with building an actual museum near I guess maybe just off the Coast or near you know uh you could access even you know to go out uh maybe even by boat to uh do the diving on it um I think that's the best idea I would definitely want to see her do that versus becoming razor blades yeah agreed um obviously again not the best not the not the outcome we were hoping for and it's not final yet but um I I have not been optimistic about it at all I mean of course I wanted to see her Sav no different from you anyone else but yep I've just never been really optimistic about it yeah um so having uh having said all that um shall we segue we can okay so the first thing I'm going to do is uh try and bring up your picture of the Queen Mary or the or the first mini that uh we're going to be showing off here and uh I've got it up on screen now I can't move it this is uh unfortunately what we gota what we're going to have to deal with but it is what it is we will be on the very first picture though for yes uh it will be the very first picture let me know when we're we're up there oh I see it on my screen already yeah yep so what what are we looking at here so uh give a little bit of background the Queen Mary had even though there was not an official announcement on uh over like uh public um media uh it was it was known that that the ships both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth were going to be coming up for retirement within a few years we're talking about like 1966 in this thought so um the City of Long Beach had the idea of building a a Maritime Museum and possibly a new Convention Center uh using a ship and I believe that's the uh I believe it was uh it was Robert Crow who is in this picture here he's the one on the left signing he was the vice mayor of long it was oh actually it was it was the city manager I think initially who had the idea um and this was only going to come about by uh bringing in funds from the state of California from the Thailand's oil act which is basically whatever City a either it's offshore uh oil rig if it's uh if it's um grilling and and pumping oil on Coastal lands if it's a a artificial Island that's constructed to to build an oil drilling platform um the city that that would be posting uh received money from the state of California to build something in return you got money from funds that were coming from the oil companies that were wanting to have these platforms or or grilling Rigs and that money would come in but it had to go to certain uses it had to be something Maritime it had to be something to improve the coastal areas of that particular City and so the idea was brought up but almost as an afterthought not even really seriously being considered of buying a retired ship turning it into a museum and a convention center and uh and the funds would come from the state of California now a lot of people think that it's taxpayer dollars that are you know that went to buying and rebuilding the Queen Mary for Museum it's not taxpayer dollars it's actually funds that came from Little companies that that had these uh drilling rigs or built drilling rigs or built artificial islands and then in Long Beach's case it was long if you look at old 1920s photographs of Long Beach particularly what they an area called Signal Hill which is just basically a small hill in the middle of flat land and it is filled with oil DS completely filled So Long Beach had been long known for for a source for oil um there was a demand to build some artificial Islands right off the coast of Long Beach to grill for more oil and we'll we'll see those here in a little bit and so that's where the funds came lo and behold May 8th 1967 the announcement was made that both queens were going to be retired que Mary was literally going to be retired within months and the city had to act and in fact the city or the um the Queen Mary went up for auction July first or something like it was very very beginning of July Long Beach had to send officials out there to place a bid um they did place a bid Long Beach won the bid at a bid of $3.45 million and this Photograph here is the official signing of the sale taken in Long Beach at the Long Beach Hilton so sir basil smallpiece who is the chairman of the kard line is on the right hand side sitting down and so this is the official signing of the sales agreement between the City of Long Beach and the kard okay so it wasn't just uh for Long Beach hey uh it'd be a cool idea to have a retired ship here let's go find one yeah I mean first off the the idea had never been thought of before you know there had been you know small little ships that had become museums but not not very many there just a a few and they certainly weren't going to become any kind of of large complex the Queen Mary was considerably larger than any of these ships that that were already a museum pie and uh to cut you off but for the record she's also bigger than the SS United States she is also bigger than the SS United States correct I'm sorry you go ahead and yeah you can go ahead and move on to the next picture here I have it up I do have the next photo up I know it's gonna take a second for it to catch up for you no no no problem so so this is December 9th 1967 the the Queen Mary is entering the coastal Waters of Long Beach just outside of the Breakwater here um literally there was over th pleasurecraft boats us naval ships Coast Guard um goody year had a the blimp flying over to to get overhead shots that were Coast Guard helicopters it was spectacle to believe I wish I had been born a few years prior you so I could have seen it myself um and uh the fan the the ship is arriving with passengers so the ship is coming in fully operational go go to the next picture okay I could spend all day going on Interiors but just these are just a few shots of what the Interiors looked like I mean they were you know untouched completely untouched um the first picture here is the uh first class long Gallery you can go to the next picture and then um okay and now we're looking at the second class smoking room which is now the uh uh the wedding chapel on board um the long gallery or at least part portions of it the one that we portion that we actually see there is the um well what everybody refers to as Starbucks or or the U um the midships bakery uh on on board so uh you can see that that image of the U painting of uh Sussex landscape uh shoot I can't think of the name no can't remember the name of the artist but uh uh but that painting is still there today and you can go ahead and go to the next one okay so looks like a uh a ceremony here um yes let me uh let me see if I can guess what this is this is the the last captain of the ship and he is essentially handing the ship over to the city is that correct so this was um the first part of the day of December 11 this is two days later um we have uh actually you know what I actually think this was December 9th I don't think this was December 11th um mayor Edwin Wade is the uh Gentleman on the left with the um the white sailor cap yes and uh and uh Robert Crow the vice mayor is on the right with the with the bowler hat uh uh and then you have you see Captain John John treasure Jones uh who is handing Edwin Wade the uh the penants the cardine flag I believe also the um uh the blue ensen and uh probably the Whit star pennant is in there as well and he's handing those to Edwin W well would it have been uh Canard Whit Star by that point so the name Whit Star had been dropped but she flew into long beat wearing both the uh the kard house flag and the White Star Line pendant on her main mat that's very nice I like that yeah and it was two days later on December 11th when the official handing over of the ship uh was uh took place it was done on Sund a um there was a phone call that was made to u s basil small piece um basically kind of a an audio send off and then a phone call was placed to Lloyd of London to remove her from British registry the captain wept did he not he wept a little bit and that's his wife uh next to him there in the aqua BL dress okay so uh we've got a black and white picture here uh it kind of looks like she's in a dry dock so the and I hate to use this term but um Money Was No Object at least in the beginning of this whole project and uh and that came back to to really give Long Beach uh uh kind of a bad name with with with the Queen Mary but in what way well the spending was just completely out of control because they would announced that the initial project was going to be a certain amount um I I think they were looking at maybe possibly 20 million you know at the most um for the entire conversion and uh and that ended up going significantly higher and uh but uh the next few pictures will be kind of the where a lot of that money went to and a lot of it was in uh the preparation of the ship and then we'll also look at the preparation of the land so here we see the Queen Mary this is uh probably sometime in in uh uh May of 1968 she was brought to the Long Beach nebal Shipyard Dry Dock she was there for approximately two months you can go to the next picture yeah we're out there we're looking at looks like the uh the outermost port side propeller correct so you're looking at the port side outer propeller um this is probably one of the most expensive outer Hall procedures that were done to the conversion and that was uh to leave that propeller on the ship it's only remaining uh propeller uh that is still attached to the ship and then if you go to the next picture you can see where a lot of this money went which was one huge big enclosed tent that that would be attached to the side of the ship and what is the purpose of this tank now if we go to the next picture Let's see we can do that okay this this allows the uh visitors to literally exit the hall uh walk around a uh a railing and look into what is a freshwater tank and uh with lights and be able to see that propeller I see I that's very nice I like that I wish some of the um some of the military vessels would do that that are Museum ships but uh as far as the ones I've been to that I know of uh you cannot do that or it's not and and and the the idea is is great however the cost to build that tank was enormous and it was and would present huge problems for any possible Towing especially if she was being towed to dry dock at some point um it was it was very difficult to get her to Pier J with this drag on her port side it was uh very tedious for the tug BS that they handle but it did work out and um you know at one time the the propeller actually spun slowly but it did Spin and all the reports I've ever been told was that it stirred up the water just enough to where the image was a little blurry so you really couldn't see the propeller and although the drive is there they don't they haven't spun in here right right um it's that's interesting because um thinking about other Museum shfs and again Queen Mary um one of the one of the reasons why I had why I wanted to have this discussion is she's kind of and we you and I talked about this she kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in the museum ship world because she's not a traditional museum ship in the sense that like these military vessels are she's a hotel she's uh an entertainment complex she's a there she's a multi- purpose entity right right and um and we'll go into a lot of that um you know those differences here I think at the end I think that's G to be one of the main topics that we'll we'll discuss but go to the go and go to the next picture if you want okay yeah just uh also wanted to mention real quick the only uh ship I know of where uh as far as other Museum ships where you can actually see the propellers still attra uh attached to the ship is the kid when she's out of water right right but what what are we look at it here this almost looks like the top of a funnel but I'm sure that's not what it is well you're you're close it's the bottom of a funnel well hey look at that that is the ler what happened that is the lower ring of the of the forward funnel and the uh and the portion of deck that that actually was attached to it um so it was decided that um that the funnels needed to be removed and all of her Machinery spaces would be basically gutted except for one engine room they decided to keep one for display but the rest of the engine room uh and go ahead and go to the next uh okay picture there and and by the way the when they removed the funnels they had discovered that the funnels were in such bad condition um that they needed to be replaced with replica funnels and uh although I don't have a picture here there are shots of other portions of funnel that uh literally collapse on on the dock okay this just I'm learning this for the first time I did not know that the funnels on the ship currently are not the original funnels yeah they're not the original funnels and they are not even the exact same size they are slightly ever so slightly smaller than than to scale H any reason they did that or um the explanation I had been given was it was the material and the and the role um uh because it you know those had to go through a roller to be to given be given that curve and I guess it had something to do with you couldn't go with a larger size that's that's the explanation I've been given okay and you know and you know by by the naked eye really can't tell but but they are I would love to one day climb all the way to the top and drop a a tape measure down and actually get like the dimensions of what they are today but I can do that anytime soon I moveed this over to this um illustration that you got oh okay can you go back can you go back one yeah yeah of course let's see it's yeah okay I'm back it looks like we're we're inside one of the lower parts of the ship I'm not exactly sure where this would be of course you know so every basically every Machinery compartment inside the ship other than the after engine room was completely gutted and what we're looking at here is what remains of the uh forward engine room and that light glare that you see in the image that's actually still the the Ford engine room Skylight um that's shining sunlight down into the engine room any reason why they did this so um so go ahead and go to the next picture okay and this is just a small portion of the Illustrated uh Concepts that they had for all of these lower spaces and in fact okay they wanted so much space that they actually even removed they had planned on removing all of C deck so they were only going to keep everything from R deck up and then C deck was uh only partially removed because as they were moving forward on the ship as far as um getting it ready for conversion for the those lower spaces they had started to realize they weren't going to have the funds for it and so they only made it about halfway from the stern to uh to midships and then they so cck is in existence halfway and then forward gotcha and if you go to the next picture uh this is basically giving you a um a side view of the ship and all of those different spaces that uh I I don't know what the colors were but each each one had its own different theme okay and that was going to include the uh the cargo space the cargo hold spaces All the Way Forward at the bow all the boiler rooms the the turbo generator rooms and the forward engine and the only spaces that uh were actually used for Museum use was Boiler Room five which is the last boiler room and the after in or the afford inur room and uh that is what later became the the Jac custo living sea movie gotcha today today it it is not fully in use and that is because they've been working on the on the hall uh for um uh corrosion treatment on on her lower um bottom and the tanks but uh so that removed the lower level of what was known as the exhibit hall which was a three-level Convention Center complex that was used as a convention hall probably from oh maybe the late 1980s until 201 16 2017 and they still do use the upper levels for some things but uh it's just an it's just a space that doesn't even have a classification of a name anymore gotcha so we go to the next Picture This is actually uh a picture that uh uh is from Joey B on on Facebook and I thought just thought this was a great image uh of her with absolutely no funnels uh this is probably just prior to the replica funnels being installed in fact um the hall is still uh unpainted although getting ready to be painted at the at a point here pretty soon this is probably about 1970 it caught it especially caught my eye um because it almost looks like her GRE ghost scheme yes yes it does um I realize now I've got an image backwards but if you go to the next one here this is still taken at what's known as Pier e over at the ship and she's actually maybe only weeks away from her toe over to where she is today she's all freshly painted the new funnels are in place um and uh yeah soon she will be uh it would be February 25th 1971 when she was towed over to her current location and uh and then she would open to the public on May 8th of 1971 so it wasn't very long yeah not was the first time she was actually opened up as a you know I'm I'm use the term museum ship just because it's quick correct if you go to the next picture this is the one that's out of place is this is before the hall actually had been painted but you can see all three replica funnels have been installed yes and then we'll go to the next one and this is very early morning of February 25th 1971 you can see the large cut out openings on her port side there that would be ready for the gang ways in her new new location that perod day okay and that's the uh that's the early Rising Sun catching her her port side there yep a bit Overexposed that's a photographer in me noticing that yeah yeah I can imagine that reflexion was pretty good you know brand new fresh paint you know oh definitely glossy yeah yeah so so we go to the next picture this is a um an AR um a um image of what was known as the the shoot I can't remember what the name of it is now this is why I shoot myself for sometimes not getting a lot of the information I want I know we're looking at a map we are looking at the new Long Beach terminal facility that was built I think they started Construction in the early 60s it was finished um about the time that the Queen Mary had arrived about 19 1966 1967 um this is supposed to be an image uh showing the locations of everything in 1970 so the Queen Mary had not been placed there but if you look at the top portion of that kind of sharp angled Peninsula that is all of reclaimed land that was uh created uh for uh for regular uh Merchant traffic and and Freight being brought in and coming out and then at the very top edge of that angle as you see it kind of going up to the top of the image that is where the Green Mary is today okay and if we go to the next picture this is what it looks like today that that man-made Peninsula has grown a little bit you can see uh the marking there where the Queen Mary is located today yes and if you take a look there are four Islands uh initially there were three and then the fourth one was built later but the initial three islands are named Grom Island white Island and caffy Island yes these are these are named in honor of the Apollo one astronauts that Parish oh wow I would not have uh I would have not have guessed that and these are the man-made islands that have uh large oil uh facilities on them today gotcha and then the fourth island is Freeman Island I'm not sure where the name comes from but again um this is the where the money comes that paid for the Queen Mary's existence correct and if we go to the next picture here now these are pictures that aren't quite out in the public so a lot of these are going to be pictures that a lot of people have not seen before and I will say that have to give uh props and big thanks to Aaron uh K4 RNA uh who is a member of the uh Long Beach amateur radio Association oh no kidding our Aaron come on yeah yeah our Aaron yes how about that he he was able to get these pictures from the amateur radio guys um he's also a member of uh W6 the amateur radio station on board the Queen Mary and uh so so these images is are are from him and what we're looking at is what remains of the Long Beach uh Pike amusement park and the uh roller coaster that was there until just a few years uh before the Queen Mary open uh it was opposite what is now uh opposite of the ship what is now um Shoreline Village I'm not seeing Aaron in the chat said Aaron if you're still out there listen we appreciate this and so wanted to show these because you not only had the millions and millions of dollars that went into the ship for the conversion you had millions and millions of dollars that went to set up the infrastructure for her her dock um if we go to the next shot we are looking at the uh recogniz that yes we are looking at the uh East Tower Of The Two Towers there's an East Tower and there's a West Tower and and yeah there is something missing there it's the Queen Mary yes the towers have been built the uh the walkway Bridges have been in place uh but there is no Queen Mary yet and so that went on uh even until uh her arrival they were just barely finished I think by the time the ship needed to open wow uh the next shot is uh the parking lot area and looking at both the uh the West and East Tower and um and what we call the tea um walking bridge that used to lead out into uh the um or London Town but uh initially it was just basically a ticket booth area and a Plaza and that that's that that little bridge that you see on the right that kind of goes off yeah out of view um but this is a very interesting shot because again no Queen Mary um in fact the the um uh the uh what's known as level four level three level two on the on the platforms of the towers they don't even have railings yet this is probably about uh this probably maybe maybe even late December early January of 7 one okay and if we go to the next shot we are looking at the Queen Mary on her big toe uh this is looking from the pi J facility uh as she's approaching her her new home amazing shot and you can see the I can see the holes that we were looking at earlier cut out on the sides yes so you hope that they had pumps available on board in case she was taking on any water uh because yeah otherwise those big holes she would have gone down pretty quick yeah definitely uh the next shot here is taken from the uh uh looks like probably prom deck or Sund deck forward on the uh super structure but we are looking at the ship approaching Pi J what's now Pier H but originally was pure J it looks like we would be I mean obviously that's the folle in front of us I know um AF of the well deck and I would imagine the bridge is behind us and above us behind us and above us and believe it or not they had converted one of the Capon to um us AC power and functioned so that it could be used for warping ship which they did use it's on the port side still has the motor there today but it doesn't operate today and if we look at the next shot here we can see this is taken from uh probably Sports deck or what would be near the um the entrance to the officer quarters today looking out this is uh the large crowd of people Gathering uh where the spruce goo Stone would be today okay I kind of got it mixed up there I got us on the right one I think Harbor Scenic I think that's the name Harbor Scenic Drive uh it follows along the outside of the parking lot and and the SCU SC St and then it actually continues to curve off to your left and then around to the other um shipping peers and if you notice that's not even finished yet in this photograph okay and if we look at the uh next shot uh approaching closer you can actually see the uh the parking lot that would have been to the to the east of the plaza and uh and where still the spruce is today and today all of those tanks and and stuff that you see out there on the on the uh terminal that's all gone all it's all been taken over by uh uh container uh loading facility and then uh the next one is back out on the on the bow and she's uh looks like her bow is probably midway between the the East and West Towers yeah I'm imagining this is uh she's pulling in yes yes so she's inside the uh the The Rock JY that now surrounds it so on on the east side they had not even built that Jetty yet and on the west side there you can see there's a boat that's kind of hovering around the outside entrance there but that was all placed there so that the tugboats that are assisting her to come in had an ability to maneuver and and to leave if they needed to and the next one is actually she's probably getting close to being in place um but if take a look at the American flag that's on the Mast of that uh one Tugboat I see it it was a very windy day so I can only imagine it they must have been straining those don't look like the adequate power of tugboats to to handle a ship like her but I guess they did the job and um she's in place so I mean that's she's just basic one big giant sail you know with that wind you tell that wind's just coming around her proud so and then the last one we'll take a look at is she's in place been mored um but still missing gang ways out off the uh the towers yes the only gang way that's in place looks like is the U what's the uh referred to is that it's a dck forward uh gang way that leads into uh storage and engineering department that kind of stuff today originally it was originally it was third class third class cabins there on D it's funny see hearing you say DDE is my mind's going to where D deck is on Titanic and it's in a much different spot uh yeah than on the queen so did did Canard go like a deck from bottom to top so the the first deck of the actual H you know the the whole decks and not part of the super structure is main deck okay um uh prominade deck is is actually in the canal levered por of the larger Windows which is part of the super SE I see yeah like they said they they there there's they're they're names so differently you know between the two companies right now I don't know how Whit star did later on when they uh you know with the MV bratanic and the georgic those final shifts they did because you wouldn't have had third class by that point right so um I don't know I've never actually looked into that so so to kind of wrap up on the Queen Mary has had her ups and downs but the one thing that has guaranteed the Queen Mary existence through all of these decades is the fact that one she's completely owned by the city of Long two the property that she is Mor at and the dock facility and and the the all of the infrastructure there is all owned by the city of long beot um in many cases even with Museum ships um you know it's been a lease kind of situation where they are leasing the dock space uh maybe maybe even a long term but you know unless you've got somebody that you know doesn't really care about the the location of the dock and has no plans for it um maybe they'll sign a 99 year lease but otherwise it's year to year or in the United States's case it was it was uh month by month and uh which just kind of a an understanding that yeah you know we we'll be here until said time that we find a new location but you know they had not they had not renewed their um agreement for rent and everything and that don't really want to go into you know pointing blame because it's really kind of you know everyone's to blame I think let's go back to how all since we're segueing into the SS United States here um I think there's blame to go around on both sides yes um so this whole thing started in Co um the Conservancy claims that uh penwar housing unfairly raised their rent almost doubled it if I remember correctly unfairly the Conservancy refused to pay the extra rent that they were being told they had to pay they continue to pay the uh what they previously agreed upon right that's that led to the court case um the Conservancy successfully or argued in court that they were unfairly uh P Warehouse unfairly raised the rent right they won that side of the case and we obviously ly know where we're at today with uh how the rest of it went my issue here is not just with pin warehousing but on the Conservancy because I just all this sense of urgency that's been going on uh since this uh this court handed down this decision where has this urgency been to find the ship a new home the past few years and this emergency funding and oh we can't do tours of the ship but all of a sudden we're doing tours of the ship now I mean and you know I may be sitting here armchair quarterbacking I don't have the inside information that they have but this is how it looks to me as an outsider um I don't know if you know where are you at on it what's what's your stance well I you know I don't have the the exact information to give you the answer as to you know why didn't they do tours before they tours now agreed and and I freely admit I don't have access to that information looking at it as a perspective of someone on the outside looking in I I would I would say that a good possibility of the reasons why they didn't do that is simply Insurance you know liability um more than likely yes and uh you know there is probably a uh questionable amount of of how many people can even be aboard um you know let alone just being on the property you know through pen warehousing but but come on on board um is probably a limited amount of people as well and I don't think it was ever really thought of as a as a fundraising Source I mean yes they've been charging $250 per person and that does help when you need to raise $500,000 right away definitely but but in the past you know look look at the if we go back to the Queen Mary situation you're talking about what would be today probably hundreds of millions of dollars you're probably looking at at least a 300 to $500 million investment between the uh the property infrastructure the conversion of the ship to landbased use um and and so $250 per person tours is not going to raise you the money and and there was no way that the Conservancy I think even realized that they were going to come up with that kind of money it was going to take an investment but before we even go into what should would have could have scenarios they had for today's scenario let's take a look back at the United States's history and her retirement so let's go uh to the first picture you've got here so I wanted to first uh point out some information uh well first this is the the article to of today correct is and uh uh I had planned to show that in at discuss the news but we already did that so we can go ahead and move on to uh to the next one um looks like another article um titled Abandoned America so this is one website that I wanted to point out so Matthew Chris Christopher this is he has a uh he had a podcast I don't know if he's still doing them today but he had a podcast uh on um on areas of the United States that uh were abandoned that needed help one of these podcasts was on the SS United States He also read uh created a book um on the SS United States and so a lot of the images that um I'm going to show you came from Matthew Christopher's website and I wanted to give him credit for that as well another source of of uh some of the photographs also came from the Conservancy uh uh some of them are are marked as Stanton DeWalt which I've known I I did an interview with him um earlier uh in the year and I know that he those are some of his photos but through the conservancy and then um if you go to the next one here this website called alation I think that's how you pronounced it um yeah um well I think their very first article was literally about owls about um the different type of of uh endangered owls in Florida and and then I think it took off from there that's why I think it's named Al but um they they have a whole bunch of different articles about um the history not not just American history but uh history uh world history um available you know to give as a class it it seems like it's a uh they're cre in in kind of a curriculum so um wanted to give uh uh props to uh the website allocation gotcha so this first one here and this is one that we'll probably need to refer to quite often a little bit of a little bit of the history of the ownership of the SS United States so and this is where we come into a big issue as in comparison to the Queen Mary right uh so the uh so the uh the SS United States didn't have the same luck as the Queen Mary as far as like a a planned ahead retirement a a possible sale um one of the things that that does need to be taken into consideration is the fact this was not owned by the SS or by the United States Alliance this was a ship that was basically funded by the government um and although she never saw wartime Duty um she was basically built as a warship she was built to be a um NASA troop ship numbered troop ship that uh it was it was it was really sticking in the craw of the US Navy that if we were to go into another large War um that uh the Navy needed their own troop ships instead of having to deal with the British admiralty to lease or Charter the the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth themselves right so that was where the the idea of um the SS United States came into uh I understand although I'm not seeing the proof but but the SS United States shares a lot in common as far as the propulsion design and all that as the um uh the Kentucky class is it Kentucky class the one that which one was the one that was coming after Iowa uh Montana Montana okay so the the the new Battleship class that never came into existence um they would have shared a lot in common as far as or from what I was told yeah um they do share still a lot of things in common with with the Iowas and with the Midway class carrier you you might have been thinking Kentucky because it was the fifth Iowa ship that was never completed yeah that's it I need to look to you and and I don't know if wolf Lord is on here but we always look to Wolf Lord for for information as well yeah he's not with us tonight um he's not with us tonight okay well that's too bad yeah wish he was here indeed um so in the case of the SS United States he had returned on a uh eastbound c u well no westbound Crossing from uh uh you know over the Atlantic to New York and uh immediately made a trip down to uh uh for layup uh for what was supposed to be a refit and and literally within a day or two of of that the the crew and officers were all basically being told no here's your pay here you go you're done right sh's being laid up it pretty much came out nowhere yeah it came out of nowhere uh the um yeah there was no fan no final voyage nothing um and the ship basically was taken as is still with you know linen you know closets full of of uh tablecloths and bed sheets and pillowcases and all the the the dining rooms are full of China and and ready to go but uh was immediately handed over to the US Navy basically the equivalent of having your home seized sealed up and you can't take anything out of it yes and in fact the uh the Navy because it was now under the control of the US I wanted to uh to make sure that there was no uh extensive corrosion and damage to the Interiors of the ship so she was sealed up tight and dehumidifiers were were installed throughout the ship to prevent uh that from happening so she was basically kept in really good condition um I don't think I gave the date that her her last Voyage was in November of 1969 Anda yeah and uh so she uh went to New northw Virginia was laid up there under under control of the US Navy and that was uh until 1978 when uh we had a uh fairly welltoo gentleman had the intention of taking the ship uh and converting it into service again and that that was Richard Hadley you can see there 1978 1992 let me uh pull the picture up here oh wait we have a nice shot of the liner here oh yeah yeah well I just want to we're gonna go into the history here and then we'll we'll go into some shots here okay continue with the with the info line here but uh this is where the the the troubles began and uh although he had money he didn't have he wasn't excessively You Know Rich and the cost of keeping the ship you know she was moved to from nor I think she moved to Newport News at that point and uh so the cost of keeping her at dock the cost of keeping uh you had um uh uh people on board a couple people on board to over oversee her uh all that took its toll on on money and and yet still nothing was being done and uh and so in order to try and cover a lot of the costs of the ship in that state things were starting to go first it was you know the Linens and then it would be the furniture and then it was the light fixtures and and and anything that wasn't you know structurally part of the interior of the ship you know basically was starting to be sold off and in fact they had a large auction there's a video yeah um on YouTube of the auction yeah um taking place I don't know if you've seen it or not but I've not but I I'm aware of the auction itself yeah yeah and and unfortunately that wasn't you know that wasn't enough to uh to keep her afloat shall we say yeah unfortunately they didn't stop there no and so uh you had the uh the ship was seized for being delinquent in in her uh in her docking fees and all that and so the uh I'm not sure what the the whole history is on uh Monera Marine um now they talk about Mara Marine Bo I can't say that mar mar marm um it was always thought that she had the possibility of going back into service and I remember this when I was you know just starting to spend more time on the Queen Mary we were hearing about the the SS United States possibly becoming a cruise ship again and uh but it was always known that in her current state with as bestus lines you know bulkheads in the cabins um you have uh you had pcbs you know ballast you know he had the um one of the toxic things is a lot there's a lot of fluorescent lighting on the ship the fluorescent lights have Transformer ballasts um to operate the light bulbs um those are full of pcbs so all that kind of stuff had to go if you were going to bring the ship into a modern-day cruise ship operation you wanted new Plumbing you wanted new electrical you wanted new um you wanted definitely different Arrangements of cabins in in in the second and third class uh cabin spaces uh and the way to accomplish that was definitely not to do with the United States and so you know that was where it was arranged where she was towed to uh to um initially stul turkey and uh it wasn't too long when uh Green Peace got a hold of the information you know um went out in their little uh dingies and and spray painted Death Ship on on her and and the uh Turkish government had come back and said you know what we're not going to allow uh this to to take place in turkey and so lo and behold though the uh Ukraine had just become independent from from uh you know what was the Soviet Union and they were they were looking at any anything to get money uh in their new uh free life there so the ship was uh then towed to suban Ukraine and uh and then brought back in 1996 to Philadelphia and she's been in Philadelphia ever since 1996 a different location initially than where she is now um and multiple owners as well in that time frame right multiple owners multiple uh uh scenarios as far as you know still a possib I mean even Crystal Cruise Line was looking at the possibility of using her as a you know converted cruise ship uh in the uh uh around 2010 and uh and that was you know they looked at the uh you know the possibility of it and just realized that it was Way Way Out Of Reach of them to spend that kind of money on a ship like that so that was kind of the final straw as far as her becoming a an operating cruise ship and that's when the whole change of the idea of well instead of being an operating cruise ship she could now become a a a Queen Mary type operation where the um the ship would be a hotel a convention complex um and in my my my thought was always wonderful she's a she's a clean slate she has the ability of having modernday you know hotel rooms um you know beautiful Interiors now we're going to look at some of the Interiors of the ship everybody will give you the idea that she's completely gutted and the one thing that we're going to take a look at is the fact that the ship was a mid-century modern design of interior which which was which was pretty plain you know metal sheet walls and and painted surfaces um and even the furniture you know that was on board you know during her sailing career wasn't built out of wood there was no wood on board we all know the story of William Francis Gibbs uh right you know definitely afraid of having anything wooden on the show right yeah the uh the Steinway piano and the bitcher blocks were the only uh correct source of wood that you had on board uh so if you take the cost of what it takes to build a large convention complex in hotel you're probably comparable to about the same amount of cost it would take to convert the ship into a convention complex and hotel um to convert her into the back into the United States was out of the question but you definitely you definitely could take portions of her especially the large public spaces and rebuild them to give them the aesthetic uh Recreation of what they looked like in in the 1950 absolutely that and the cost would definitely be down it wouldn't be like the Queen Mary where if you you know the thought would be to restore the uh the second class dining room which is basically completely gone to and I gotta stop you for a sec Steve Ahad yeah Aaron has sent us a super chat for $2 thank you so much Aon I appreciate that Ain says so awesome Steve is doing great love to see the radio club's photos thanks so much James well Aaron thanks Steve for that because um it was well and thank you because it was you guys who made that possible so you know thank you guys so much for that and thank you for the Super Chat Aaron that's that's really awesome of you I really appreciate it so I I'll just wrap up with this we we had the Conservancy the SS United States Conservancy come in in 2010 um with mostly although they did have the crystal Cruise Line fought into you know being brought up with them um they have been basically looking at the ship being a static display uh you know Hotel convention complex unfortunately you're not in the same situation as with the city of Long Beach and the Queen Mary they don't you know a city doesn't own the SS United States the locations in a lot of cases are not owned by the city or if they are owned by the city they have long-term leases with well like like pen warehousing in Philadelphia for example um so you're going to be dealing not with the uh the government entity of the of the area that you would be going to say New York or or Philadelphia but you're dealing with now the leasing company of the property and prate business and and as you know the SS United States conservant ran into you know not always easy to work with and and what could be an easy thing and say you get 10 years in 10 years from now their whole business operation can change and they may not want that ship there any and so unless you had some kind of an ironclad long-term lease where you know there is almost no possibility of the ship moving the property has definitely got to be owned by a government entity it's just I don't see any other way so let's yeah let's go ahead and let's go ahead and move on to the last pictures here we'll get through those it's hard for me to argue that point with you now I don't know the um every single situation for all these ships but uh you know how many of them are on privately own land if any of them um that's that's a good question um maybe one worth doing some research into yeah well see I think in in midway's case I think it it is the Port of San Diego that that owns the um the peers there but I I don't know for that for sure but I'm almost positive that it's it's the uh part of New York that own appears there on the Hudson River that the intrepids have okay so we're looking at a picture of the big U sailing here yeah one one of my favorite pictures of the ship absolutely beautiful shot absolutely beautiful ship too in her prime yeah she she looks so amazing um if we go to the next one this is taken in Norfolk uh at the navard laid up um I believe like around 1970 yeah she's definitely still in service at this point or at least she looks like she she's looking pretty good still looks pretty good but but but laid up not not in we've got another Super Chat here wow Matt uh with $20 love the history lesson and the historic photos keep up the good work Matt thank you so much my friend I truly truly appreciate that and uh wow that's two super chats guys thank you all so much that's amazing so take a look at another one uh this is I believe like a year year later or so I think also in North yeah we're looking at her stern here and there's a looks like a cruise ship over there to the left right and then uh when Richard Hadley had taken uh possession of the ship one of the things he wanted to do was to get a really good assessment of of her H condition and to probably do some work to uh um to stop any issues that might might be taking place with the hall so if we go to the next one we can take a look at the SS United States in floating dry do this would be 1980 I was going to say I know uh 8081 she was in floating dry and she's starting to show some age here you can see the green decks aren't so green uh the funnels are taking on that faded look that we know so well today right right and then uh I think we'll take a take the next one I believe this is now in Newport news um here after after dry do this would be probably maybe late 80s early early 1990s okay the next one is 1996 on her toe uh I'm not sure the location this could be her leaving leaving uh Newport News but it might not be I don't remember for sure what the UHC you can see looks like the life boats and the davits are still on the ship at this point right right so yeah if you ever see a picture of her under toe and the lifeboats are all still in place you know that that she is definitely heading to uh to Europe uh at you know and not coming back to the United States because that was where all of her lifebo dbits and her life were removed at that point right and we take a look at the next photo she get a bit Haggard here yeah I believe yeah I believe this is in Ukraine still with her lifeboats all in place yeah it looks like they're this this almost looks like they'd be in the process of gutting her yeah if they haven't started already they they would be yeah and then we'll take a look at the next one and this is the interior gutting of the ship oh I've got an exter shot here let's see well it it's an exterior shot of the Interior being removed from the ship should be okay I think that's the one I I just had up so let me pull that back up it's going to take a sec for you to catch up nope you're too far ahead yeah well no actually where are you oh there we go that's it that's yeah I actually had it up already I think I jumped ahead a bit earlier that's easy to do but yeah she's she's clearly being gutted here clearly being gutted um in a lot of cases you'll see um that uh that green zinc chromate primer which which you find a lot in on the interiors and that's basically an aluminum primer uh you saw that you see that color on the funnels today with most of the red white blue now gone you you you you see that uh that green zinc chromate primer yeah and then you can go back to the next one which where you were at a little bit more more of a current not quite current but uh mostly Philadelphia here yeah mostly current this is uh looks like this is at Pin warehousing yeah I believe so we'll just take a peek take a peek at the Interiors really quick and then we can be done and we can we go into discussion and maybe we can ask answer some questions with people but uh well what we're having this discussion um I noce Mark Mark kind of put in the chat uh you in reference to the being gutted uh death sentence I think that is part of why she's in the situation she's in but I don't think being gutted is the one and only reason why I think we're kind of going through all of the reasons why right uh this you know we're leading up to where we are today and and again going back to the situation where she had the possibility of becoming a cruise ship you know uh you're you're boy I'll tell you I you know you know me I love the Queen Mary but my goodness if I could just take all of the cabins out redo all of the plumbing all of the electric and then put the cabins back I would do that because she has so many problems with pluming um there are some issues with electrical and that's because the job in the 1970s wasn't exactly that great but right Plumbing is the biggest um particularly sewage um those are those are galvanized pipes or or steel pipes and uh uh there has been on many occasion a disastrous break in a sewage line it's not pretty H I would imagine probably not doesn't smell very good either no no not at all not at all so so going to the United States and and you know if she had become a land uh a landbased hotel Convention complex the the Clean Slate is again an Advantage because you you have the ability to build you know larger modern more accommodating hotel rooms that the public is going to want yes part of the problem with the Queen Mary is yes he has the classic wood interior cabins they're not as big as most hotel room they're not as big as as as uh well they well I don't know they are bigger than a lot of cruise ship cabins today but um but they have thin walls you know there's there's there's really no um insulation to speak of there's uh um there's fire protection and we won't mention that that particular word that might be in there but uh but there's no like fiberglass type insulation so and and there's no there's a lot there's no real like steel bulkheads a lot of it is just wood um between cabins so uh you can clearly hear conversations that are going on in the room next door um sometimes you hear things that are going on next door that you don't want to hear about and these type of complaints come to the hotel desk all the time and and that's where you know that's where the United States would have had an advantage as far as a a modern operation definitely um but don't give me you know a lot of people are are willing and ready to accept the fact that the Queen Mary is a 19 30's ocean liner and uh and will you know graciously accept those little you know issues um but some people don't and and that you know can be a problem with with guest sometimes um but I'll tell you this uh especially in today's operation on board um they're very accommodated um if you need to move to another room they they will move move you to another room um if uh if they can't move you to another room a lot of times they'll give you a a uh you know they won't charge you for the parking um or they'll give you a um a breakfast voucher you know for your stay they're very accommodating to make sure that your stay is Pleasant even with those little works of age you know you made me think of something uh real quick this is off topic a bit but um there were some second class passengers on Titanic and I forget their names but it it was uh two women and this one lady she constantly complained to her stewards about anything and everything the one the room was too cold the room was too hot the food wasn't good she didn't have to want to have to go to the bathroom that far away the elevator was too far away every single thing this person could complain about she did and she finished off by saying I wish I'd went on the morania I don't remember if she survived or not that's that's probably where uh the screenwriters got the idea for the script for Titanic when Rose mentions she doesn't look bigger than the Moran possibly but I digress uh anyway we're talking about the big U here so so on these last pictures this is about the interior of the ship and the fact that most people have the opinion that she's gutted mess and that and that that is the one of the main reasons for her demise and and where she's going today it it really isn't and let's let's take a look here let's go to the first one so we're looking at a staircase here so uh this is probably one of the upper deck areas of uh access into the Machinery spaces uh I am not familiar with the United States's uh layout so I couldn't tell you where we're at um the those look like uh uh those look like hot tanks um but I'm not positive but we're definitely in the Machinery spes everything below the passenger spaces is all Machinery space and it's all there it's all complete all the boilers all the the the turbo generators the uh the the the turbines for the engine rooms all there now there have been some issues that one of the the uh turbo generator rooms I think had a fire and so the control panel is not really much there anymore um and that's taken place you know during her her layup years right but it's all basically there it's it's uh much more there than the Queen Mary is today so if you wanted to have um if you wanted to do the displays of taking guests down into the engine rooms you know of the fastest ship in the world basically yes uh you know there it is and and all it needs is is a little bit of abatement a little bit of clean up little bit of paint and and you're there not anything different than any of these Museum ships you know bringing the Iowa out of mothballs bringing the New Jersey out of mothballs um it's the same kind of work right and it's been done and if we take the look at the next one we're actually getting more into the engine room spaces and so this is another shot you can see that a lot of the asbest wrapping on a lot of the Lin steam pipes and stuff are not there hang on am I do I have the right photo up I'm let for you to catch up youve got you've got two one back okay so we need to go you went you you went the other way so we were looking at our staircase I went One backwards m should be one more go one more back see I think we looked at that one already no no that's that's the other that's the engine room one the one with the the giant red pipes on the ceiling yes okay okay I've got that one back up um okay but now we can go forward and you go to the uh the stairway okay we were just at the stairway yeah yeah let's let's go no no no the the passenger stairway not the not the Cru you went the wrong way yeah apparently it's easy to do okay so we were looking at a passenger stairway yeah I'm waiting for it to come up I'm waiting for you to catch up uh well if are looking at the passenger stairway that you should be looking at this is the first class main staircase on the ship okay so take a look tell me where should I be the top left okay we'll get there yeah oh this delay is killing me there we go okay so one thing I want to point out that you'll see in a lot of these photographs is the fact that yes the Interiors are mostly gone but in a lot of cases like say the staircase uh uh the fyers in the staircases and the staircases themselves you still have the basic structure the bones you you have a lot of Bones look at the to your left uh you have the two elevators that are still all there yeah um and if you I think there's another photo that we'll see in another shot but that's still the original deck in fact promanade deck is written in the uh rubber flooring right at the at the base of the stairs so we we know that this is prominade De um so the bones are there it had the ability to become um at least in a lot of ways just like the United States was in her sailing days without a lot of cost without a lot of you know you didn't have you don't have the wood interiors that you'd have to you know have a a a craft an expert crafts wood Craftsman to come in and do inlane or markety panels anything like that we're talking about keeping her still in a mid-century modern but with even more modern um conveniences so um let's go to the next one okay so I'm not sure what deck this is but we're basically looking at a a passenger cabin interior probably first class look like where the cabins would have been and there's a long hallway to the left yes right so this is just like one of the passageways on the Queen Mary in her existing hotel room today or hotel area today um you do have one main passageway that runs four and a half but if you notice there's little side passageways that lead off into other to other accesses for cabins and if you look you can see there's two portals there on the side that have white paint around them well that's that's actually part of the cabin interior there um so all of the cabins are gone but look at all the empty space right and and which which I'm a little bit surprised is they're still ducting so uh you know maybe possibly uh that ducking could have been reused for uh for the hpack systems on board um fun fact she was first fully air conditioned ocean liner fully air conditioned ocean liner um and and ducting is is quite tedious and expensive to do so um you know if it could have been reused maybe possibly uh but uh but here's the Clean Slate here's where you build you know the the Sheridan or or um uh uh win you know rooms you know whoever whoever would get the hotel contract yeah um and and it can be to their design whatever the you if you if you developed a contract with with a hotel chain and they wanted to have control of what the rooms look like there it is yeah you could you know you're not looking at creating the rooms exactly as the SS United States is cab where you're looking at creating rooms that people are going to want to stay in and here's the empty here's the Clean Slate for them to do that exactly let's go to the next one and this is this is the uh this is I believe the cabin Class movie theater um so again Clean Slate yes you don't have uh you know you don't have the theater seats you don't have the uh movie screen you do have the stage the stage is there you can to the little staircases on the left and right um so again the bones the bones are there and uh you know the inter I should have tried to pull up some shots of the Interior what they originally looked like but I can tell you if you if you do look up uh interior pictures of the United States beautiful but but very plain not a lot of intricate artwork in the design of the actual walls right uh the the overheads you know pretty plane uh let's go to the next one but I think we're we're nearing the stern uh and this is one of the I think this is a second like second class enclosed pomin bace area um you know you still got glass in the in the uh sidelights there uh it's probably a second class Lounge um again I'm not familiar with the SS United States interior layout but right there it's all there um you can even see that the light pictures for the uh the overhead of the enclosed promade still there yep let's go to the next one uh this is uh probably more enclosed uh or more cabin space areas yes um so you have a set of double doors that looks like they lead out into uh um the outside the deck uh although it's not in very good condition that is original floring that you can see on the deck and if we go to the next one this is the long enclosed prominade uh and and look it's you know yeah the paint is peeling but the original deck surfaces are there um looks like you've got a nice set of double doors all original still there go to the next one that's it oh no actually I think we're going to the next one but uh not the one with the round windows but the one after I might be behind it should switch any second now okay so if we're looking at the one with the tree yeah that is a that is a tree growing on the ship amazing and that and that dirt Mound that you see is apparently the nesting uh for a a goose I guess a Canadian goose who uh I didn't even notice that yeah there's a goose on there yeah uh but again look at look at the the double dos that lead out to the outer deck this is probably on the looks like on the stern um and and even the original flooring um probably for preventing any kind of like flooding from outside deck into the inside you've got probably a ra um threshold here so that's why there's a ramp going up to the doors and then you probably have a step to go down um but again here all original pretty much as it was not in the greatest of shape but definitely could have been reused for uh us as a hotel agreed and if we look uh the next one we're back to the to the first class main staircase and this is the one where you can see the words prominade deck in the original flooring yeah I see it we're at the very base of the steps yeah and then I the very last one they obviously you when you've got outside windows and we have this have this problem on the Queen Mary as well but um they've taken steps to try and close a lot of the Portales that had been open um so you get uh you get the weather to come in you get rain uh you get a little snow to come through and then of course it kind of settles in on the deck and it looks like those are hoses there they did try to pump some of that water out right um uh this is I'm not really sure where this is at on board but um you can see off in the distance on the right hand side you can see there's some interior uh features of some kind of a public room you got like the little round holes there um and again you've got a lot of those things as part of the ship and I was hoping I was going to give this whole speech you know with the thought well maybe she could be a a hotel well well now it'll be fishes probably swimming through those it'll be a hotel just um like you say for fishes for marine life that's right yeah and that and that's it that concludes our our visual portion this is a very broad open-ended question um but I just I'm curious uh to your thoughts anyway do you think um knowing the Queen Mary the way you know it at any point in the Queen Mary's history uh not as uh retired you know as a museum ship if we will was there any event or series of events that happened in her time in this capacity that would have made anyone uh who would potentially consider doing the same thing for the USS United States look and say you know that's not the best idea I'm not I'm not gonna go forward with this so I'm not really sure that there is a boy this is really difficult um I know that's like I said that's a very broad open-ended question yeah because I don't want to make this sound as if as if the Queen Mary has always been like an iffy Venture um because she has had ups and downs like most other you know you know operations have had ups and downs absolutely um as far as the success of operating a former ocean liner as a hotel if you were to come and look at the Queen Mary's past of history of operation um you would possibly be well they had some good points but here's what we should do and and I think that you could say yes that the Queen Mary has had enough success to show that it's it's a um it's a viable Venture it's viable yeah yes yes um but if you were to want to look at an operation that so far has been very successful as far as I've been told um a and did things the right way which was basically leave the ship alone and that would be that would be the SS reran in in roer okay I I'm I'm not familiar with it yeah definitely uh Google up you know I'm going to come up with a really huge list of uh of uh websites and stuff for you to probably put in the description so if anybody comes back later you know they can come back and see a lot of these things we'll put maybe the Ram's website um and all that so that people can take a look but the SS rdam is I think most ship efficient Autos have the overall belief that that is how a hotel ship should be operated okay so this is not a military vessel this was an O liner no this was a ocean liner built in the 1950 okay well there's one elephant in the room room um talking about you know the Queen Mary as we've started off saying she has a future the SS United States it's it's not looking that way um right we have another example yes yes yes and no yeah well it depends on your point of view uh right yeah as far as her ever being anything like the Queen Mary uh I I'm not I'm not optimistic at all that's going to happen right um yeah but we have we have another example um I don't know if moons are still around but guess what ship I'm going to mention next Queen Elizabeth yes what happened here why did this one fail in your opinion so so this was kinard's hope that you know you know history could be repeated with with the what looked like was going to be a successful uh retirement for the for the marage um and went into a well initially was going to sell the ship to a bunch of investors uh from the east coast in the United States originally Philadelphia um that group didn't completely turn out uh to get all of the funds to make the entire purchase and uh and Philadelphia at the time I guess also wasn't really they weren't looking they weren't very successful in finding a location to bring the Queen Elizabeth to or to keep her um but they were able to find a place to bring her in Florida so I have no idea what possessed ginard to even take the risk because if you look at gard's um circumstances at the time um they were financially in trouble I mean really in trouble by 68 69 including you know getting you know the funds to complete uh the finishing of the Q2 um was was Dire for them because they needed something to replace the two queens U because both queens were were out of service before the QE2 even came into service mhm and and then uh kard had two of their four Canadian ships running they had a couple of uh combination you know freighter passenger ships I think they still had the media at the time um but that was it um so they were also investing into just brand new cruise ships not not any kind of like uh ships like the um the Canadian ships the carmania the syania um that were they were built initially as as Atlantic liners to Canada they were smaller scale than what you would see going to New York but still built for North Atlantic service and then uh saw a little bit of of mod modifications to make them kind of dual cruise ship and then also handling Atlantic Canadian service but you know you know that's those were expensive to run so they were looking at getting new ships and they got a lot of expens or inexpensive uh considerably inexpensive compared to like the Q2 um little cruise ships you know there was Kenard Ambassador and kard CEST and kard Princess um that were all coming they were going to be coming into service with kard into the that early 70s but boy did they have a time when they had hardly anything in service and so here comes the sale of the Queen Elizabeth 1968 and the initial investors said well we don't have all the funds but we have some of the funds and we want to try and make an arrangement with you that we'll we make payments on the ship um you will be kind of like a an unmentioned partner in the adventure until we get you paid off well they I think the only paid 10% of the initial cost of the of the sales agreement W with kard owning 90% of the ship and they you know had her sale to for Everglades with the intention of uh first opening her up for tours uh so that they could ra they could bring in some kind of an income and in order to do that they basically talk quite a few of the kunard line uh officers and and crew members to stay behind because a lot of them were actually looking at retirement when when the Queen Elizabeth was done and uh so they brought the Queen Elizabeth to Florida without passengers it was a it was a uh Skeleton Crew on board to begin with and then uh the uh there were quite a few of the kard officers and crew that that remained behind in fact even Commodore Jeffrey Maher stayed behind and and was looking after the ship for a while um but now you're talking about a ship that is continuing to have to operate a few of the boilers and and with the Queen Elizabeth unlike the Queen Mary it had to be one or two of the main water tube boilers she didn't have the smaller Scotch boilers that the Queen Mary had for her electric power and so you had to you had to keep a boiler watch on you know 24/7 and time started to make that more and more uh of a problem uh you know you did not have the type of Maintenance that was going on like did under kard um the canard's uh crew weren't getting paid in some occasions so they said not forget this and we're going back to and went back to England get whoever they could get that maybe had some kind of experience operating boilers you had one problem after the other they didn't have you know you're talking about a ship and it's still you know to this day I'm not even sure how they got away with it they would have obviously had to reregister her she's not landlocked um I don't know what the case was with the with the Queen Elizabeth but she's still functioning as a ship still functioning you know no uh landside Services no water no um uh electrical power it's all coming from on board and and then so you had the conflict between a ship and building codes and the fire department came out and she had a lot of problems with with keeping her fire Mains up uh because the pumps weren't operating and so then you have a fire hazard issue and it it just was so repetitive of one problem after the next that they never got anywhere you know they had hoped maybe to op you know to open up the hotel you know open up the cabins for hotel space you know operate restaurants out of there they had some catered events on board but they never operated a full like restaurant it was tour groups coming on board touring certain uh specific groups on the ship um there were some events you know where there were people invited to have a Catered Affair but that was it and then finally uh the fire department had shut them down for for uh fire hazard issues and then kard line finally said we're not getting any money from these operators um and so then they contacted uh I think I I don't want to say I don't know if it's Broward County or not but they contacted whatever the the county is that that Port Everglades was in and through a uh a court order um the ship was seized boom done gone and within two weeks ginard put the ship back on the auction block and and and that was done that was the beginning of the end because uh uh SE wise University and uh right SE Tong you know was the the the winner of the big uh for that auction and uh and within a matter of weeks after that you know preparations were already underway to make her uh operational enough to get to get her to uh to Hong Kong which which didn't quite work out very well but that's a whole other story indeed but and so that was the that was the end of of the possible East Coast West Coast Queens right it was a really nice idea but they didn't have the capital to invest into the operation to begin with and again like the City of Long Beach you know yeah they you know they probably put in too much money and put in and had too many grandio plans but at least the funing was there through through the state of California these guys had nothing and so the Queen Elizabeth was basically doomed from the start in my opinion gotcha yeah well having said all of this uh are there any other ships you want to touch on as far as Museum ships so we're going to possibly have a a later uh stream uh at some point I know you and I have been talking about it I don't want to get into any details about it but it's going to be touching based on this and I think that one thing should be said and that is the success of the modernday large Museum ships today the USS Midway in San Diego the USS intrep in New York the USS North Carolina uh the um all the Iowas yeah yeah all all four Iowas all four yeah the Alabama the Alabama yeah you could list them off you know more than I do the kid kid the Texas will be the K Texas not so much where she was but where she's going to be uh she's going to turn a profit yeah and these are all nonprofit operations you know this is not where you're taking a ship to want to be a hotel and operate restaurants and at uh this is basically a nonprofit operation with little for you you have for-profit things that are running in there like the gift shops and so but that's all going back into the the ship um but the one thing that the Queen Mary is going to have to look at is also being more nonprofit she cannot be a commercial straight commercial Venture Hotel comp she's got to look at or The Operators and and the the nonprofits that are coming into existence that are going to be assisting with her they need to look at at the the nonprofit historical portions which is needing to include 100% has to include some kind of a youth program you have to have educational curriculums created so you can bring in classrooms um you need to offer uh uh sea Scout programs you need to offer um summer camp uh overnight stays uh or day camps you know look all of these operations Intrepid Midway the Iowa they all have this type of setup and that is these groups these smaller little groups you know they have they may have a little Destroyer here they're hurting because sometimes they don't have that kind of a setup they're just a museum with a with a historic ship and that's it and look at their crew that is operating they're probably in their 60s 70s 80s they're not getting the youth to come down to be able to know how to take apart of a water pump you know an air activated water pump or or how to polish brass or how to Holy Stone a te de because they're not interested they're basically they're not being taught appreciation of history in in schools now anyway but but if you look at a lot of these programs that have been around for a little while with like the Iowa with the lane victory in Los Angeles um with the Midway you get these 10 11 12 year olds who are Beyond thrilled to be on a ship like that and to experience the type of stuff that would you would when you m ship was in service and I can tell you several people from volunteering on the Iowa volunteering on the lane Victory they were you know 10 11 12 13 and continued on into their later teens and now where are they a lot of them went to the California Maritime Academy become an officer on a uh merchant ship uh some went to the Navy and are are enlisted in the Navy or even went to uh Anapolis to be uh an officer amazing that's that's what needs to happen with the Queen Mary indeed I I couldn't agree more yeah sta I think I'm kind of spent here is there is there anything any questions that anybody have that might we might be able to answer one or two before we sign off yeah let's uh let's see a quick Q&A here um and uh we'll see if anybody's got anything to ask if not um we'll go ahead and get ready to wrap it up because uh as you just said um there's another potential stream in the future that we've discussed and I don't want to uh get too much into that yeah it it will probably be on my channel but but James is going to be involved with it and and so we'll be uh bringing it up on on both channels for sure absolutely the Midway I'm not really seeing any questions I think we I think we burned everybody out I think everybody fell y I think we wore them out I'm a little worn out myself but it was a good good good chat and a solid two hours good solid two hours except for those few first few minutes yeah we we we had some hiccups it always happens but hey we it under control here here's one here's here's one last possible good scenario for the big U okay let's say this um this sinking happens uh you know the the county in Florida that's a driving distance for me it's not that far you know I I could be there in a few hours um let's just say uh let's live in fantasy land for a minute yes when the ship gets there let's say the county says One Last Tour you have to pay a fee you go out to the ship and you get to walk it one last time do you go well I would I would I was I was trying I was trying desperately to see if I could get on one of the tours before this whole you know you know having to be out by September 12th was going to take place but it unfortunately happened so quickly that there was no way I could feasibly get out to Philadelphia in time and I W I wish they had off of it in July you know I was there only a month prior right right but and boy and I was I was trying to left and right like boy you is there any way to get on the ship without kind of putting that a thousand doll down and and uh I wasn't getting any response from anybody so I was like okay well be nice to see it boy I'm glad I got to see her but you know if they if they do the move to Florida and they say okay well we'll we'll we'll put on display maybe for the first few months before they start doing the remediation of of the rest of the stuff on board um yeah I I would probably do it as long as it wasn't $ thousand I'd do another yeah yeah well I think we're gonna go ahead and call it there all right um so guys you know the content schedule as always although we didn't have a video of this uh of the week this week um it'll be back next next week um all times or us central time our video of the week is every Friday morning at 7: a.m. live streams typically one hour are tip every uh evening at 7 p.m. uh the ren video shorts are at 11: uh am we had a Queen Mary one today I consulted Steve with that uh as well 15,683 yes there you go you got it so uh Steve thank you again uh for coming on and hanging out with me and guys Steve will be back in October I'm gonna go ahead and spoil what we're doing right now Steve all right in October uh Steve will be back uh about the Queen Mary again and we are going to be discussing the ghosts of the Queen Mary she is allegedly a very haunted ship Steve's going to fill us all in on that as best I can absolutely guys thanks for uh coming and hanging out with us as always I truly appreciate you guys um uh uh fair warning um there might not be a live stream next week I may have something I have to uh attend uh stay tuned to the channel for updates on that and um we'll miss you James well I appreciate that at least someone will so if it's not next week I see you it'll definitely be the week after and until then you guys know the drill as always drive safely