Historic U.S. naval vessels to get renewal

Frank D. Roylance - 

Out of the water for the first time since 1998, the 1854 sloop of war Constellation looked pretty good to its caretakers as they walked beneath its grimy hull, now propped up in dry dock at the Sparrows Point Shipyard.

"I think we're surprised she's as clean as she is, for being in the water for 13 years," said Chris Rowsom, executive director for Historic Ships in Baltimore. "It shouldn't be too difficult to get her washed up and painted."

High on blocks just aft of Constellation is the 1944 submarine Torsk, which faces much more extensive work. Repairs to the two ships — key tourist attractions in Baltimore's Inner Harbor — will cost $500,000.

Rowsom believes it is the first time in Navy history that warships from World War II and the Civil War have been dry-docked together.

The naval relics, put in dry dock last month for a month of repairs, occupy only a slice of the vast facility just outside Baltimore. Constellation is 250 feet long. Torsk is 318 feet long.

With a cold wind blowing, crying gulls wheeled overhead and landed to pick through the dead fish and other morsels on the muddy floor.

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