Good evening all. The last update I gave you had been a somber one. However it was for good reason. Now however things have changed. The petition has been continued to be signed and we are less than 100 away from 1000 signatures. Even with my last update I am pleased to see people are signing regardless. More and more people around the planet are speaking our for their displeasure of seeing this great liner sunk. And if any of you are following the news the county is STILL at pier 82, paying full price I may add. Which means they have already wasted a quater of a mill before they even moved her! Why have they not moved her? Well I cannot say but there are tons of theories. Regardless this works in OUR favor.

 So here is what I would like you all to do. I need each of you to share this petition with your friends and family, and ask them to share it too. If they are willing to sign it costs NO money to do so. Every signature that is aquired will strengthen this petition ten fold. I also ask you to write to both your Democratic and Republican representative in Congress regardless of your political affiliation. The reason being if we have both parties constituents saying the same thing they would be more inclined to make a move in this direction.

The Conservancy did a horrible job at marketing the ship to the general public. I believe with the power of social media, word of mouth, YOUR passion and love for history we can advertise her plight and work to make this vision a reality. Because a fully restored museum ship is a proven concept with Queen Mary, USS Midway, the Iowa Class and others.

Other examples of museum ships that are in poor condition at the beginning of their life as a museum ship are the U-534 and the Vasa. U-534 was sunk during ww2 with a depth charge and was over 200 feet underwater. It stayed there for 41 years, was raised, refurbished and restored for museum quality. Vasa is a 5 story tall wooden Swedish warship that  built on the order of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus and sank in 1628 on her maiden voyage in front of hundreds of people on shore. It was considered an embarrasment for the King and remained there for over 300 years. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, raised in 61 and cleaned out 333 years of mud, grime and water debris. It was finally opened to the public in 1990. 

If people can do those mega projects overseas with technology that was not as good than today's why can we not do that with SS United States? Well I say we CAN! however many will say that it is "too expensive". In today's money Mt Rushmoore would be 20 million to build, and it only required 400 workers to complete. This is not including restoration and upgrades to facilities. That is on a surface of 500x400 feet. 

Nearby and even larger statue of Chief Crazy Horse is under construction using entirely private funds. And yes 20 million is not the same as 500 million. But here is the thing. There are people willing to come and lend their skills to the restoration of the ship for FREE. And you do not have to restore the entire ship at once. You can leave some unfinished until a later date. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people willing to donate to a cause like this. But ONLY if they KNOW about it. So that is where YOU come in. The people like anything else run things. Political, business whatever it requires people to make it happen. 

So share, either by word of mouth, post, text this to a friend who likes ships or engineering. I have updated the contact list for the next administration and will continue to refine it over time. In the meantime I ask you to continue to use the hashtag #SayNOtoOkaloosaCounty.

Lets get this done people! Thank you and have an excellent week! I will update this in the coming weeks with news about our efforts.