S.D. Shipyard Hosts Open-Tunnel Party Inside Exxon Valdez

The first step in fixing the Exxon Valdez is done, so officials and workers at the San Diego shipyard where it’s under repair had a party Saturday. It’s not every day, they figured, that they could show off a 600-foot-long tunnel cut out of an oil tanker.

All invited were encouraged to roam through the tunnel, cut through the belly of the giant tanker by slicing through 1,600 tons of steel, as well as to gaze up at the ribs, the skeleton and the scrubbed oil and ballast tanks rising above--and to ponder the awesome destruction told in the eerie spectacle under the ship’s right side.

There, sitting on concrete and wooden blocks three feet above the ground, are what’s left of the sheets of steel that used to form the starboard hull of the Valdez before it ran aground in March on a submerged reef in Alaska, causing the nation’s worst oil spill.

Illuminated by powerful work lights and criss-crossed with scaffolding, whole sheets of the ship’s skin are shredded, twisted and crumpled. It looks more like a discarded beer can than steel three-quarters of an inch thick.

“That it could be tangled this way--unbelievable,” said Dennis Krumweide, manager of structural engineering at the National Steel & Shipbuilding Co., where the Valdez is in drydock.

“This is the sort of damage I think happens in war, getting hit by torpedoes, the like,” said Peter Zschiesche a machinists’ union representative at Nassco. “Here you get the chance to put the ship back together.”

Nassco officials said candidly Saturday that putting the ship back together also means getting the chance to focus attention on their company, on U.S. shipbuilding and on the foreign competition that has defeated many other U.S. shipyards.

Financially troubled and beset by bitter strikes over recent years, then the object of a management-led buyout last spring, Nassco is, however, still alive--and the West Coast’s only remaining shipbuilder.

Work on the Valdez, so far, is ahead of schedule, and Nassco officials said they hope that kind of performance on the big ship will attract other building and repair jobs, large and small.

Nassco has a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” because of the attention the Valdez has generated, said Dan Peoples, a spokesman the company has hired. “We could have people in here every day of the week, looking at repairs to some Navy ship, and they’d be yawning, saying, ‘Ho-hum.’ ”

Even with the great attraction, the company went to some lengths Saturday to impress. It transported visitors to and fro on modified golf carts, offered juice and doughnuts and hoisted photographers on a special motorized scaffold.

All it asked was that visitors be careful and take heed of the signs warning of “rocks and falling debris.”

The Valdez was towed to Nassco, where it was built in 1986, after it slammed March 24 into an Alaskan reef, spilling some 11 millions of gallons of oil.

The ship arrived off San Diego July 10, but its entry into San Diego Bay was delayed by the discovery of steel plates that were jutting from its hull, as well as an 18-mile slick nearby.

The plates eventually were removed, and the state and Exxon reached an agreement to allow the ship into state waters.

The ship, 987 feet long and 166 feet wide, was eased Aug. 15 into drydock.

The first phase of the repair work involved cutting away those center sections of the hull that also were shredded or twisted.

To do that, crews had to slice through the bow of the ship, which was undamaged, so they could get to the hull underneath--and to create room to work. The drydock is only 33 feet longer than the ship and affords only two or three feet of space on the sides.

After the bow was opened up, crews then removed the 15 structural frames--each 40 feet long, 44 feet wide and 16 feet high--that, welded together, comprised the damaged center. That part of the job took seven weeks, was completed Nov. 9 and resulted in the 600-foot tunnel.

The job is “about five weeks ahead” of schedule, Krumweide said.

Beginning Tuesday, crews will begin replacing the frames, two a week, Krumweide said. Each unit, weighing 100 tons and supported by hydraulic lifts and air bags, must be navigated through the tunnel with precisely one-half inch of space on either side of its 44-foot width, he said.

After the center is repaired, workers will repeat the pattern on to the right side, tearing down the frames, then welding in the new ones, Krumweide said. When finished, the ship will be the “same strength” as before the accident, he said.

Work is expected to be completed by next July, Krumweide said. Budget estimates for the work are $25 or $30 million, said Fred N. Hallett, Nassco’s vice president for finance.

Though expensive, the cost of repairing the ship falls far below the $130 million to $150 million Nassco officials previously have said it would cost to build a new one.