Righting the Texas Clipper on the Seafloor off of South Padre Island, TX

A Large Scale Salvage training Opportunity for the U.S. Navy
A Texas parks and Wildlife project

The Texas Clipper as she went down to the seafloor

Request for assistance having been filed, the next steps are coordination between the Navy SUPSALV, Navy NECC and the TX Parks and Wildlife Commission. W. H. Nuckols Consulting will facilitate those meetings and the recon trip to Texas for the Navy.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Division (TPWD), a state agency within the Texas government, is seeking assistance from the US Navy for an ocean engineering project that will upright a former military ship which was sunk as an artificial reef and now lies on her side. The 473 ft Texas Clipper was originally commissioned by the Navy as the USS Queens (APA-103) in 1944 as a troop transport ship who served her country well in World War II ferrying troops into battle and caring for and transporting the wounded at Iwo Jima. The Texas Clipper later served as a Texas Maritime Training Academy ship and served sea cadets at Texas A&M University at Galveston from 1965 to 1996. Her final duty is as an artificial reef in south Texas 17 nm off South Padre Island in 135ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico, Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Block PS 1123.  The reef site is permitted to the TPWD.  However, the ship did not land in an upright position on the ocean bottom but is now lying on her port side.  This orientation has effectively neutralized the modifications made to the ship which were designed to increase diver and fish utilization, and accordingly the ship artificial reef is not achieving its intended community economic and recreational benefits for coastal south Texas. The Texas Clipper is an existing TPWD permitted reef site, and permits already in hand allow for modifications to the artificial reef, including the righting of the vessel. This project was intended to serve an economic purpose for south Texas, a purpose that in its current configuration is not being achieved.

Project points of contact:

Will Nuckols
Military Liaison for the TX Clipper Project
443-994-1493 mobile
Will@WHNuckolsConsulting.com

J. Dale Shively
Artificial Reef Coordinator
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
(512) 389-4686
dale.shively@tpwd.state.tx.us

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The original reefing plan called for the ship to rest upright on the sea floor. The ship, however, is currently resting fully on her port side. 

Sitting upright, the topmost point of the ship would be approximately fifty-feet from the surface of the water.  In the current position, however, the topmost point is approximately seventy feet from the surface. 

Holes cut into the hull to allow divers access to the interior of the ship are not accessible from above.

The increased depth and change in access make this a much more complex dive. 

Less experienced divers will not be able to fully explore the reef as initially planned. 

Texas Parks and Wildlife is interested in working wi the Navy to develop a plan for righting the ship.

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HOW LARGE IS THE TEXAS CLIPPER SHIP?

• 473 feet long
• 66 feet wide
• 80 feet tall from the keel to the top of the “S” (sundeck) deck
• Gross tonnage 6,736 as Queens; 9,644 later

 

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE SHIP?

•      Ship of Three Lives
•         USS Queens (1944-1946)
• Launched in 1944; Bethlehem Steel shipyard, Sparrows Point, MD
• WWII transport and attack ship
• Named after a borough/county in New York
• Carried troops and wounded from battlefields in the Pacific
• One of first attack troop transports into Iwo Jima following the ferocious battle for the island
• Carried two 5-inch cannons; 2 twin 40 mm guns; 2 twin 20 mm guns; and 18 single-mount 20 mm guns
• Never fired her guns in battle

• SS Excambion (1948-1959)

• One of the Four Aces operated by  American Export Lines
• Passenger cruise liner and cargo vessel
• One of first fully air-conditioned ships in the world
• Traveled all over the world
• Retired in 1959 when marine passenger service was being phased out because of competition from the new jet passenger service

• USTS Texas Clipper (1965-1996)

• Loaned to Texas Maritime Academy (forerunner of Texas A&M University of Galveston) to train cadets as officers for the American merchant marine
• Traveled to ports in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Mediterranean
• Carried a complement of up to 250 officers, faculty members, crew and cadets
• 30 consecutive summer training cruises

Upon retirement, she was berthed at the US Maritime Administration Fleet Reserve facility in Beaumont, Texas

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The USTS TEXAS CLIPPER rests approximately 17 miles off the coast of South Padre Island, Texas.

Current Location of Texas Clipper – Latitude and Longitude according to North American Datum 1983

Bow of Ship
Latitude 26 deg  11 min 24.31646 sec
 Longitude 96 deg 51 min 41.16392 sec
Stern of Ship  
Latitude 26 deg 11 min 28.80828 sec
Longitude 96 deg 51 min 42.56449 sec

The reef site is located in federal waters of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the western portion of the Gulf of Mexico in Outer Continental Shelf Block South Padre Island 1122.  The nearest municipality is Port Isabel, Texas which is 23 nm from the reef site.

The reef site is located approximately 17 nautical miles east of the Brownsville, Texas ship channel near South Padre Island