Fun fact about th USS Constitution, the US Navy maintains an entire white oak forest in Indiana just to use in the maintenance of this one ship.
That actually is a very fun fact.
It’s also a trained forest, essentially using bonsai style techniques to form specific branch points and curves that are needed for specific timbers.
Pfft that’s nothing. HMAS Melbourne was the only Australian ship to sink two friendly ships in peacetime 💪
She was just that eager to spill blood.
Metal as fuck
It’s cooler in Fallout 4. It’s crewed by robots and flies.
Also real life is a downer. Was super cramped, don’t know how they fit 100 dudes in that thing.
Also, since our taxes are keeping it floatable, would it kill them to bring it into armament parity? Swap out the guns with missile tubes, maybe an icbm tower in one of the masts?
Are M134 chaser guns too much to ask for?
CIWS on that baby or bust
that one unit in Civilization you forgot about and never upgraded in 500 years
You don’t intentionally keep a unit museum? You’ll see me later Game pretty regularly with my frigate flagship followed by two privateers surrounded by modern naval units. It’s kinda fun to dunk on the PC with a fuckin broadside.
Oldest American naval warship still afloat…
Or any nation as far as sources I have list.
Apparently there is this uge differwncw about where you storage them. The only reason some portugues and British ships aren’t the oldest sailing vessels is because we keep them in museums. Yhe but they are still in comission, sooo idk I guess we where both right depending how you frase it.
So, while the USS Constitution is the oldest naval vessel still afloat, the HMS Victory holds the record for the oldest naval vessel still in commission. Both ships are significant historical artifacts and serve as museum ships, commemorating important eras in naval history.
Although HMS victory is the oldest naval vessel in comission, she’s got 3 decades on the old girl
Not afloat though
Do you realize the if they are in comission all that they need to do is put it on whater and then constitution stops being the oldest afloat.
So if I can take it’s title that easy maybe it doesn’t deserve it idk
Victory would sink if put on the sea.
Over time, repairs have been carried out to maintain her appearance, but not her seaworthyness. In many places, soft wood has replaced hardwood and no effort has been made to ensure she is structurally sound or water tight.Bro wtf are you talking about, the USS constitution is towed by tugboats in it 1 yearly journey…it’s little more then the victory tbh.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/massachusetts-uss-constitution/index.html
Victory would likely sink in the dry dock before the tug could take her anywhere. There has been no effort made to make her float. Hull repairs done over the last few decades have not been made water tight.
It wouldn’t constitution had never been dry docked as a matter of long term storage, victory hasn’t seen water in a hundred years (April 8 1925) and no you cannot easily just drop her back in the water and expect her to float. That said constitution could sail today if it were advantageous to do so, last time she sailed in her own power was July 21 1997.
Cool ship, took a tour last year
From the other sideMen only want one thing and it’s
disgustingbeautiful
I took a tour in June of 1980. Great ship. Fun to see an old sailing vessel up close.
Wow. Must’ve looked a lot fresher then.
I have a 3ft model of the constitution in a box that I’ve been meaning to put together for about 10 years now… but cats.
Maybe someday I’ll have a spot to put it together in peace.
I got a china cabinet at an estate sale and have been putting some Lego sets in there and its been cat proof……… so far
You could always go for a glass/acrylic case over it but that’d probably be prohibitively expensive
That looks rad!
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I have a half finished model I started during covid I really need to finish off
So…if someone found a nail that was a part of Theseus’ ship, and rebuilt it around the nail, would it become the oldest ship afloat?
Yes… or no?
What’s the shitter look like?
None to speak of. Poop was slammed off the sides.
Both wrong and right
https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2014/01/18/head-lines/
Hilarious title, ‘Head Lines’
It was what now?
Slammed! As in “Be. Gone. You. Foul. Pile. Of. SHIT!” Or whatever they called their poo back then.
Shit
So old it’s still grayscale
Does it still sail, tough? I know the French analog, the Hermione, does.
Yes, at least once, maybe twice a year it sails. Meanwhile it’s docked at its own museum the rest of the year - the ship itself is free, but they charge for the museum. I’ve seen it many times
Funny anecdote: when I first met my about to become new in-laws, they came from Washington DC to visit me in Boston for the Fourth of July. I was excited to take them to see the Constitution, both boarding at the museum dock and watching it “sail” down Boston harbor. I must have gone on a bit, due to my excitement …… eventually my about to be new mother-in-law from DC spoke up with not understanding how they could do that with such an historic document, and what would there be to see anyway
Someone else mentioned that they raffle off tickets to be on it when it does. I remember there were QR codes posted to be entered in the drawing for the July 4th sailing.
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I feel like the term afloat is used because it not safe to take out in open water?
No, they sail her around all the time. The USS Constitution is a commissioned vessel in the United States Navy, crewed by active duty sailors. They use the term “afloat” because HMS Victory is the oldest commissioned naval vessel, but she is kept as a museum ship in drydock.
That makes sense, appreciate the answer. I’ve just always heard it as “sea-worthy” before, afloat in that sense is a little weird.
Well, knowing the USN, the reason is either a) some extremely long, convoluted line of reasoning formulated through several Senate subcommittee hearings to avoid pissing anyone off or b) someone wrote it that way once 75 years ago, and no one knows enough about why to want to change it.
I’m in the navy. “Afloat” means “goes to sea”, generally. A museum ship might literally be floating in water, but it can’t go to sea.
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Fun fact: HMS Victory was actually bombed by the Nazis during WWII, which means she technically saw combat over a span of
144164 years (1778-1941).Edit: math are hard.
Oldest “active” ship in the US (or any) navy, IIRC, they take it out once a year to get rated seaworthy & remain active. Amazing ship. want to feel like a puny, pampered modern person? Read Patrick Obriens 20 volume Master and Commander series…so many unwashed asses on these for so many months in some of the most inhospitable regions of this planet.
Twice a year to turn it around for equal weathering. They raffle tickets for people to ride on it.
They also sailed her under her own power back in the late 1990’s. I was a USCG Auxiliarist back then and was on one of the escort boats that kept the public from getting too close.
They also occasionally do invite-only turnaround cruises. I was lucky enough to be invited on one of those during my USCG days as well.
I’m more into space, but I’ll put it on the list…
I alternate between space trash and historical fiction
There’s an aubreyandmaturin community here on sh.itjust.works but it’s pretty inactive.
There are dozens of us…DOZENS!
Nope. Old Ironsides is seaworthy and makes regular trips out to open ocean, usually under tow but she has an incomplete set of sails and can sail under her own power.
The US Navy owns a plot of southern live oak trees in Georgia set aside specifically for maintaining USS Constitution.
From what I’ve been able to find, the ships were originally built using live oak trees from Georgia, but the forest the US Navy maintains for the USS Constitution is in Indiana.
https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own-private-forest.html
https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2015/05/11/the-wooden-walls/
TIL.
Digging all the little details, of course I could have just looked it up, but engagement!
Wouldn’t be very good if they kept a plot of dead oak trees.
Haha I suspect you know this but live oak is a species of oak. It’s not referring to their mortality status.
I’m not joking when I say I had to study trees in school, I’m a carpenter, they did teach you a bunch of stuff about species of trees and how they grow.
I wonder what happened to the USS Charisma
![[OC] The USS Constitution, the oldest naval warship still afloat.](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d5c9b27d-0ddf-45b3-a533-498edc45252a.jpeg){kind=link}