It doesn’t say anything about activating machinery. It just says we can't get underway. So, rule number one, no joyrides.

When You Own An Iowa-Class Battleship And You Want To Turn A Turret

One of the questions we get, of course, recently is: we just turned a turret. Did we have to get permission from the Navy to do that? And the answer simply is no.

The contract for the IOWA states that we can activate a system such as that for specific purposes, including cosmetic display, safety or maintenance - all three of which are handled here in our desire to load projectiles for cosmetic display, to provide a safe method by which we can do that, and also for maintaining all of those systems.

How Battleship Contracts Differ

All three of those things are specifically addressed in the IOWA contract. Very simple. So the other battleships don't have anything that prevents them from rotating a turret in their contracts. They just have slightly different language. They're all variations on a theme.

For example, MISSOURI’s calls out that they “must protect, preserve and maintain the vessel, including hull machinery and appurtenances in a good state of repair in an efficient operating condition.” That doesn't mean you can or cannot operate a turret or rotate a turret for good reason. There's nothing in the contract that states you can or cannot do that.

One item of note on NEW JERSEY is that they're allowed to sell their teak decking. It's interesting that it's called out in that contract and not in the others because we're not disallowed from selling our teak decking. We certainly can do that. But it was specifically called out as something that they were able to do with the NEW JERSEY contract.

With WISCONSIN, one of the interesting features is that they cannot do any significant modifications to the vessel that cannot be reversed in a three-day time frame in a shipyard setting. So the scope of work is restricted to the three-day work schedule, and it's unique to that contract and something that I haven't seen in any of the other contracts.

The Galley Exception

Another item that the Navy doesn't want the ships to do is to activate galleys for the purposes of serving food. And interestingly, IOWA is the only ship that I'm aware of that was able to push back on that and have it reversed. So IOWA is allowed, in fact, to operate our galleys. We're not sure exactly why that clause is in most of the contracts, if not all of the other ones.

Some people have speculated that it's because of the need for steam in the galley, but that's not really true either because most of the machinery, most of the cooking appliances inside the galley, are powered by electricity and not steam. So there's no question that all four of the Iowas have sufficient shore power to activate a galley electrically. But again, the contract states that all but IOWA cannot operate their galleys for the purposes of serving food. 

What The Contract Requires

One of the things we must do is maintain the vessel. They don't give you a lot of specifics. They tend to say in the contracts, maintain the vessel in a manner that's satisfactory to the Secretary of the Navy.

They say that you have to maintain cathodic protection. They say that you have to maintain the vessel in towable condition for the purposes of dry docking. It does not insist that you be dry docked, which is very important for us. But it says that you must maintain it so that you can go to a dry dock, which in some cases would require a voyage of perhaps a thousand miles. Depends on the vessel and the local shipyard capabilities.

Those are the things that we must do. But again, it lacks specificity. It does not say that you should paint it this many times in a ten-year period or anything like that at all. There are no other reference points for the most part about that. First and foremost, the contract is a donation contract.

Who Owns IOWA And Can The Navy Take Her Back?

The donation contract transfers ownership of the vessel to the new donee, or the nonprofit that has applied for it. So we own IOWA. We literally own a battleship, but the Navy can take it back. All of the contract language for all the ships that I've seen — I've seen at least eight different contracts — all of them state that in the event of a national emergency declared by the president or some other national need, the Secretary of the Navy can reach out and say, we want our ship back.

That's exactly what they all say. So it's an interesting concept that we own it. It's our problem. The next step in the contract, by the way, says it's all of our problem to pay for this. There is no cost to the government at all. There's no money transferred from the Navy to these nonprofits to care for these ships in any direct way.

It's your ship. It's your problem. If we want it back we'll take it back. And, oh by the way, we're not going to give you any money. And that's exactly how all the contracts are written.