Mishap Delays Carrier’s Move

The much-delayed project to bring the retired aircraft carrier Midway to San Diego as a museum suffered another delay Sunday when a tugboat pushing the mammoth carrier away from a dock in Oakland snapped a cable.

Weather permitting, the Midway is set to begin the five-day tow to San Diego this morning.

“The Midway is fine,” said Midway project official Scott McGaugh. “It’s going to happen.”

First proposed by sporting goods manufacturer Alan Uke in 1992, the Midway project has had numerous setbacks due to politics, fundraising problems and environmental concerns.

Even the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, delayed the drive to get the ship to San Diego, which prides itself as the birthplace of naval aviation. With the sudden drop in tourism after the attacks, Navy officials thought the Midway boosters’ estimate of 600,000 visitors a year was too optimistic. The project had to be downscaled so that it could be financially self-supporting with lower attendance.

Before signing title to Uke’s nonprofit group, Navy officials wanted to ensure that the project will not suffer the same financial problems as several other ship museums, including the carrier Hornet museum in Alameda, Calif.

The Midway is set to be towed to North Island Naval Air Station and, after a week of refurbishing, towed across San Diego Bay to Navy Pier in the North Embarcadero section of downtown.

A thousand financial supporters of the project are set to ride the ship across the bay.

Boosters hope the Midway will become the nation’s top museum of carrier aviation, with restored warplanes, exhibits, video displays and an education program that will include “sleepovers” for schoolchildren eager to learn about life aboard a Navy ship.

The Midway, commissioned in 1945, was based in Alameda and Japan before being retired and sent to the mothball fleet at Bremerton, Wash.