SS Fredericksburg (1958)

History
Name: SS Fredericksburg
Operator:
  • Eagle Carriers, 1958–1976
  • Keystone Shipping Company, 1976–2004
Builder: Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi
Yard number: 1030
Launched: as Eagle Courier
Acquired: 10 October 1958
Renamed: Fredericksburg, 1976
Homeport: Wilmington, Delaware
Identification: IMO number: 5095713
Fate: Scrapped, 16 April 2004
General characteristics
Type: T5-S-12b Tanker
Tonnage:
Displacement: 26,500 long tons (26,925 t)
Length: 651 ft 7 in (198.60 m) o/a
Beam: 102 ft (31 m)
Draft: 36 ft (11 m)
Propulsion: Kawasaki Steam
Speed: 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Notes: Single bottom, double sided hull

SS Fredericksburg was a single-hulled T5-S-12b oil tanker, originally named the Eagle Courier. The ship was built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi as hull number 1030 and delivered on 10 October 1958.[1] The ship was scrapped in Chittagong, Bangladesh on 16 April 2004.[2][3]

From delivery in 1958 until 1976, the ship was operated by Eagle Carriers. In 1976, she was bought by Keystone Shipping Company and renamed Fredericksburg. She continued to operate as a coastal tanker until 2004.

Fredericksburg was for some time the oldest tanker in the U.S. fleet, and its age showed. She was subject to a number of refittings and retrofittings, such as the 1983 forecastle overhaul.[4] Also, towards the end of her career, she had a number of safety problems. For example, on 10 June 1999 when loaded, after experiencing a steering failure, she "grounded under power at mile forty-three in the Columbia River." Fortunately, she "came ashore in an area of the river characterized by soft mud banks and suffered no damage."[5]

Some of Fredericksburg's problems were detailed in this 1 January 2003 article "Puget Sound's Rustbuckets:"

Fredericksburg has a safety rap sheet a mile long. The Coast Guard cited it for two deficiencies—improper boiler maintenance and damaged hull plates from an encounter with a Houston dock—in 2002 and investigated 26 minor accidents and oil discharges in the preceding nine years. That tally is much longer than the Coast Guard sheet on every younger tanker I examined.[4]

Finally, although "its OPA90 phase-out date is 8-Dec-05, Keystone Tankships will scrap the tanker Fredericksburg rather than incur the cost of its next dry-docking survey, which is due this month (2/6)."[6] In 2004, she was filled with grain in the port of Houston and sailed to Chittagong, Bangladesh where she was driven onto the beach and scrapped. The selling price was reportedly $425 per light displacement ton or 3.7 million U.S. dollars.[7] Fredericksburg was joined by her sister ship Chilbar at the scrapyard later that year.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula MS, Post-WWII Construction Record". coltoncompany.com. Archived from the original on 23 October 2006. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  2. ↑ "Maritime Administration Ship Inventory 1998 – Mothball Fleet". usmm.org. Archived from the original on 2 January 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  3. ↑ "Tank Vessels Removed From U.S. Domestic Petroleum Trades, 1994–2005" (PDF). marad.dot.gov. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  4. 1 2 "Puget Sound's Rustbuckets". seattleweekly.com. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  5. ↑ "Evaluation of the New Carissa Incident for Improvements to State, Federal, and International Law". oceanlaw.uoregon.edu. Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  6. ↑ "Maritime News Headlines, March 2004". coltoncompany.com. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  7. ↑ "S&P Monthly Report, March 2004" (PDF). cotzias.gr. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
  8. ↑ "DAILY SHIPPING NEWSLETTER, Number 270, Monday 27-12-2004" (PDF). ibiblio.org. Retrieved 25 February 2007.
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