The USS Wasbash – a Wichita class replenishment oiler in the United States Navy (1970 – 1994) is leaving the Mothball Fleet on her way to the Mare Island Shipyard. There she will be prepared for her final voyage to the Texas scrapyard where she will be broken up.
Learn more about the history of the USS Wabash in the Benicia Herald
The sister ship was the Constitution. She was also built in the Quincy shipyard. I seem to have a long history with those two ships. I am from Weymouth, Massachusetts, right across the river from the Shipyard. I was in the Navy and stationed in Hawaii from 1986 to 1988, My parents and other relatives took a cruise on the Indy in late 1988. When I worked for Sperry Marin in the early 1990s at Newport News shipping, both of the ships came to the shipyard for a much needed upgrade. Ultimately the ships were seized by US Marshalls as the company went bankrupt well before 9-11. The real reason they had any business at all was an old rule that cruiseliners had to be US flagged to go from one US port to another. Otherwise they needed to dock at a foreign port. (of course that is impossible to do in Hawaii). Some time ago , that rule was rescinded and there are lots of newer and larger cruise liners making port calls in Hawaii. Great photos.