Missouri Prepares For The Long Haul -- Lone Tug Will Tow Battleship To Its New Home In Hawaii

Picture a single, lonely tugboat, puffing halfway across the Pacific Ocean.

On a tow line a half-mile behind it - silent, dark and empty - looms one of the biggest and most important battleships in American history, the USS Missouri.

That will be the scene later this month when a Crowley Marine Services tug, the Sea Victory, hauls the ship that hosted Japan's World War II surrender from its longtime home in Bremerton to its new home in Hawaii.

After years of debate about its future, the "Mighty Mo" is being readied for the trip to Pearl Harbor, where it will be on permanent display. And the Sea Victory is getting ready to haul it.

"We're an ant pulling an elephant across the desert," said Kaare Ogaard, 56, captain of the Sea Victory.

The idea of a 1,200-ton tug pulling a warship 40 times its weight conjures up images from the children's classic about a tiny tug rescuing a huge ocean liner. But one thing should be clarified: The Sea Victory is no Little Toot.

While the Missouri is 887 feet of might, the Sea Victory is 149 feet of muscle.

Capable of pulling container ships, aircraft carriers or oil tankers, the Sea Victory and its four sister ships are the largest oceangoing tugboats on the West Coast.

Its two 20-cylinder diesel engines, each 20 feet long, generate a combined 7,200 horsepower, enough to move oil-drilling rigs around the North Sea, the use for which the tug was built in New Orleans in 1974.

With its pilot house 30 feet off the water, the Sea Victory rises head and shoulders above the half-dozen other tugs at Crowley's Harbor Island pier. It carries 200,000 gallons of fuel and a crew of seven.

Not your everyday tow rope

Across its back deck lies a mammoth section of chain, each link weighing about 100 pounds, and two spools of metal cable more than two inches thick.

At sea, sections of the heavy chain will be included along the line, sinking the cable 100 feet or more in the water.

The result creates a type of shock absorber. When waves pull the vessels farther apart, the line will rise slightly to absorb the tension, decreasing the chance of damaging the cable.

It's not considered practical or economical to gear the great ship's own engines up for the trip, so the Missouri will travel as a "dead ship," with no crew or power.

Even with all the Sea Victory's pulling force, Ogaard said, the tug and ship will be moving only about six miles an hour for much of the 2,700-mile journey.

One reason for the slow pace: the tremendous drag created by the battleship's four propellers, locked into place for the trip - "like pulling an open parachute," Ogaard said.

They can't be allowed to spin freely, because they'd turn the drive shaft, causing friction, heat and damage to the ship's internal machinery, which is not being used or lubricated for the trip.

Although late May and early June are usually calm in the North Pacific, Ogaard said he'll take an especially close look at weather forecasts to make sure the chance for storms is minimal.

"If there's anything out there," he said, "we're not going to outrun it."

First, a side trip to Astoria

The trickiest part of the trip won't likely be crossing the ocean, but crossing the Columbia River bar into Astoria, Ore. That side trip will rinse the hull in fresh river water, killing marine organisms that have grown on it, cutting the chance of importing them to Hawaiian waters.

Including a week at Astoria, the trip is expected to take 30 days.

The Missouri isn't the biggest payload the Sea Victory has handled, but it is the most closely watched.

"I would have volunteered to do this without pay," said Ogaard, a Navy veteran and history buff. "It's a singular honor and will probably be the biggest thing I do in my career."

A New England native, Ogaard took to the seas at the age of 16 on his family's scallop boats. At 17, he enlisted in the Navy, serving on submarines around the globe.

He came to the Northwest in the late 1960s with a scallop boat en route to Alaska. When the scallop fishing died out, he settled in the Seattle area, where he and his wife raised their two children. He has worked on tugboats since 1970.

One wouldn't expect anything less than a heavy-duty traveling companion for the Missouri, whose 16-inch guns used to fire shells heavier than Volkswagen Beetles.

Launched in early 1944, the Missouri became a World War II hero, providing key firepower at several crucial battles. On its teak deck on Sept. 2, 1945, Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepted Japan's unconditional surrender.

In 1955, the ship was mothballed at Bremerton's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

In recent years, it was back in service, launching missiles at Iraqi positions in the 1991 Persian Gulf War before being decommissioned a second time in 1992.

Now owned by private group

Last week, Navy Secretary John Dalton formally transferred ownership of the vessel to the USS Missouri Memorial Association, a group of Hawaiian business, civic and political leaders and retired military personnel.

Under terms of the agreement, the association - not the Navy - is to finance the transport, preparation and maintenance of the battleship.

Roy Yee, association president, said getting the Missouri ready for the trip and hauling it to Hawaii is expected to cost $800,000. In all, preparing the interactive exhibit could cost up to $25 million, money the association hopes to recoup through admission charges.

The exact date of the Missouri's departure isn't set yet, and depends on how long it takes to get the ship ready, including sealing some 900 lids closing watertight compartments.

At Pearl Harbor, the Missouri will sit near the memorial marking the sunken USS Arizona, the battleship on which more than 1,100 sailors died in the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941.

Ogaard knows Bremerton residents fought to keep the Missouri, and he respects their regard for it. But he feels the boat's new home near the Arizona is a fitting location.

"Here you're going to have the beginning of the war and the end of the war right in the same place," he said.

Jack Broom's phone message number is 206-464-2222. His e-mail address is: jbro-new@seatimes.com