LITTLE ROCK — North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays will break out his deck shoes to take a short ride on the historic tugboat Hoga on Tuesday, a trip he said he hopes is the boat’s initial move toward the Arkansas River.
Where the Hoga ultimately ends up, however, isn’t decided.
The Hoga is a National Historic Landmark because of its crew’s actions during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The boat belongs to North Little Rock, but remains in the U.S. Navy Inactive Ships Program’s possession at Suisun Bay in California, near San Francisco.
Hays’ goal is for the Hoga to join the World War II-era submarine Razorback at the city’s Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum on the Arkansas River.
But the Navy still hasn’t approved relocating the Hoga under a less costly, less complicated plan than the Navy’s original instructions. Hays has requested to tow the Hoga along ocean waters, called a “wet tow,” that would speed up the move.
With Hays leaving office Dec. 31, he acknowledged that the clock could well be ticking on his 10-year endeavor to transport the tugboat to North Little Rock. The next mayor would decide whether to continue the pursuit or cut the tug loose.
“The only thing that would terminate the effort is if, come Jan. 1, we got some indication from the city that the Hoga didn’t have a home here,” Hays said last week. “I don’t really feel like that would happen. ... I don’t want that to happen. I think [the museum] is an asset. It brings in tourism dollars.
“And, to me, this goes much beyond the dollars,” he added. “It’s about preservation of probably some of the most significant historical artifacts of the Second World War and of the military. I bet there’s not a couple of weeks that go by without someone asking me where we are on the Hoga.”
So Hays and a small contingent from North Little Rock are in California to ride along on the scheduled Tuesday towing of the Hoga from Suisun Bay to Mare Island, a little more than a mile away.
The group’s expenses will come out of the “$350,000-$400,000” in private funds raised or pledged during a fund-raising campaign for the Hoga, and not from city funds, Hays said. The city received Naval clearance on Thursday for the tug’s move to Mare Island.
Once at Mare Island, the Hoga will undergo topside repairs as prep work toward its possible move to Arkansas. A California business under contract with the city to maintain the Hoga, Marine Survey and Management Company, will do the work.
Depending on the Navy’s pending decision, what happens next isn’t clear.
The Navy has required the Hoga be lifted by crane onto a cradle on a barge and the barge towed on a journey that would take it through the Panama Canal and to New Orleans.
If the approval for a wet tow, instead, doesn’t come soon, Hays said, the Hoga would have to be put in storage, at a cost, until the Navy’s decision.
If approval is granted, the Hoga would be put in dry dock for more work to build separate compartments in the hull to make the boat safer for the wet tow, Hays said. All repairs would be “in the ballpark of $150,000,” he said, paid out of the fundraising campaign.
“We’re going to be optimistic and assume it will be granted,” Hays said of the hoped-for approval.
“The two major objections the Navy has had we’re addressing.”
The Navy’s objections, he added, have been that the Hoga’s single lower compartment is too much of a flooding and sinking risk for a 71-year-old tug, and underwater repairs are needed to its outside.
“We feel like even if they object, they’ll give us a reason for that and it will be something we can still address,” Hays said.
A wet tow would cost about $500,000-$600,000, Hays has said. Renting a crane large enough to lift the boat onto a barge and barge costs, plus coordination of that work, would drive up the cost past $1 million.
“The Navy would like us to get it here and get it set up,” said Greg Zonner, the maritime museum’s director who is on the Suisun Bay trip.
The Navy, according to city documents, has expected the city to take possession of the Hoga since the initial transport plan was given a green light in early 2009. The city gained ownership of the tug from the Navy in July 2005, besting four other groups in a competition. Hays began working to obtain the tug in early 2002.
If the boat ever reaches the riverfront museum, Zonner said, he doesn’t know its long-term maintenance expense. Ship museums receive annual inspections to ensure they “are being maintained properly” and inspectors follow a lengthy checklist, according to a Navy spokesman.
“We spent $17,000 last year on the three barges and the Razorback,” Zonner said of the museum’s on-river setup. “I can’t see that [the Hoga] adding more than a couple thousand a year.”
As a National Historic Landmark, the Hoga also falls under National Park Service regulations.
“If we change a light fixture we’ve got to call them, document it and get their approval before we do anything,” Zonner said. “It’s not that big of a deal, but just another group there to protect the integrity of the history of the boat.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/30/2012