Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Sinking

Watch your TV screens today for the detonation and sinking of the USS Oriskany, an 888 foot long Korean War era aircraft carrier. It's going to be made into an artificial reef off of Pensacola. Here is what it looked like as they readied it for its new life as a reef. I think the Discovery Channel show sounds cool. I expect the sinking to be on Youtube and Google Video by the end of the day.

Update: Sinking ships got me thinking about Alang, the beach in India where people rip ships apart for the scrap. They go to India because of the country's lax environmental laws and low wages. Also because it is unprofitable to do it in the West, so no one does. I found it on Google Maps, where you can see the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau awaiting its fate. Click around and you will see a large variety of ships sitting in shallow water.

1 comment:

Brack said...

We Jones of The Atlantic had an interesting article a few years back on the Alang shipbreakers:

http://www.wesjones.com/shipbreakers.htm#Copyright