THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 29, 1995 TAG: 9508290287
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HATTERAS LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Herb Bump waited impatiently Monday, as he has for several days, for word that divers would bring the propeller of the Civil War ironclad Monitor to the surface.
``I'm going to make that prop new if they ever bring it up,'' Bump said, sitting on a shuttle boat at a marina here.
The propeller could be in such bad shape, however, that it weighs a fraction of its original weight, he added.
Operations at sea, where government divers are trying to salvage the propeller, were suspended Monday for another day because of bad weather. There were 40-knot winds, 7-foot seas and 5-knot currents, said expedition spokesman Justin Kenney.
Operations first were delayed two weeks ago by Hurricane Felix, and weather at the site, 17 miles at sea off Cape Hatteras, hasn't cooperated since then. The expedition is scheduled to end Friday.
``No diving today,'' Kenney said. ``They battened everything down.''
The delay meant Bump, an expert at preserving metal objects brought from the sea, got off the shuttle boat and waited ashore another day.
The Monitor's battle with the Virginia, formerly the Merrimack, revolutionized naval warfare during an indecisive battle in Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862.Once the propeller, which weighed 3,600 pounds when the Monitor sank in 1862, is raised aboard the Navy salvage vessel Edenton, Bump will examine it for deterioration.
``It may be already broken,'' said Bump, a consultant from Belle Chasse, La. ``I've seen artifacts laying side by side in the ocean and one is in good shape and the other may be junk.''
If iron in the propeller's metal has leached out in the seawater, leaving only carbon behind, the object could be ``very brittle, like a potato chip.''
After the propeller is raised, crewmen aboard the Edenton will have to wet it down until it reaches the Mariners' Museum at Newport News, where it will be immersed in a huge tank of water. An electrical current in the water eventually will remove salt from tiny cracks, although that job may take up to four years.
If the propeller is allowed to dry, the salt crystals will widen the cracks, much as ice cracks pavement, Bump said.
Called a ``cheesebox on a raft,'' the Monitor was unique because its turret allowed a cannon to swivel 360 degrees and was armor-plated and powered by a steam engine.
Researchers and divers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has responsibility for the Monitor, and the U.S. Navy have made several dives on the wreck.
The expedition's goal was to recover the Monitor's propeller from the ocean floor, 230 feet below the surface. Divers also plan to remove the skeg - a section of the ship's keel - and place it on the ocean floor next to the hull to reduce deterioration of the Monitor's hull.
Since the wreck first was examined in 1974, the stern of the ship has lost 6 feet of armor belt that covers wood sides. The skeg and the propeller have shifted and caused stresses on the unstable stern.
The Monitor sank in a gale off Cape Hatteras on Dec. 31, 1862, as it was being towed to Beaufort for repairs. Four officers and 12 crewmen died.
The wreck remained lost until August 1973, when an expedition located it. A second trip in 1974 confirmed the wreck was the Monitor.
The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, the nation's first, is 20 years old this year. In 1987, the Monitor was declared a National Historic Landmark, the first shipwreck to receive the designation.
Over the years, various artifacts have been retrieved from the wreck. In 1977, a hull plate and a bras signal lantern were recovered. In August 1983, the ship's four-fluked anchor was recovered by divers. In 1993, a mini-submarine was used to film the wreck and inspect it. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by ASSOCIATED PRESS
Metal preservation expert Herb Bump, right, will have to wait
another day to begin preserving the ironclad Monitor's propeller.
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