Fundraising Soars for USS Edson, Hopes Dim for Honey Fitz Deal
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USS Edson (DD-946) - Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum (SVNSM) committee, headed by Mr. Kegley, is nearing a $575,000 fundraising goal .
Old sailors Mike Kegley, Dick Janke and Earl Hewitt, are smiling these days.
The smiles come from a $75,000 pledge for the USS Edson project from the Tuffy Auto Service Centers Corporation, operating Tuffy Muffler centers in BayCity, Saginaw and Midland.
Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum (SVNSM) committee, headed by Mr. Kegley, is nearing a $575,000 fundraising goal with the big boost from the Tuffy pledge. That money will help pay the estimated $350,000 to hire tugs to tow the retired destroyer here from Philadelphia, insurance and engineering costs for the dock on the west bank of the Saginaw River near the Independence Bridge.
Other pledges of $10,000 from Chemical Bank and $7,500 from S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., and individuals brought last week's fundraising total to $95,500, Mr. Janke said.
Meanwhile, Tony Dearing and committee hoping to bring the John F. Kennedy Presidential Yacht Honey Fitz, a Defoe-built icon, are facing a doubtful future for that project.
"We are far, far apart on a purchase price for the yacht, and it does not appear that will change," Mr. Dearing wrote the committee. The owner of the Honey Fitz is believed to have invested between $8 million and $10 million in the acquisition and renovation of the yacht, he indicated. The Bay City offer was limited to a reasonable fundraising figure perhaps up to $2 million, with a potential write-off for a charitable donation for the balance, according to committee sources.
Yacht surveyors contacted about the project said this value gap is a common situation with older vessels, especially wooden ones with historic value like the Honey Fitz. Local planners were hoping to have the well-known former Presidential Yacht on display here as a tourist attraction and a historic reminder of the Defoe Shipbuilding Company.
Local maritime museums reportedly were offered the Honey Fitz for $1 by a previous owner in the mid-1990s. The offer wasdeclined by both groups because of the ship's poor condition and the high cost of renovation. The Honey Fitz had deteriorated with years of use as a charter in Greenwich, Connecticut, and had holes in the hull. The historic vessel was made part of the auction of JFK memorabilia and acquired for $5.9 million by William Kallops, a Louisiana oilman. Kallops invested another $2.5 million or more in renovating the vessel. It is now docked in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The Edson, already fitted out as a museum ship, was formerly on display in New York City. It is expected to draw 100,000 or more tourists annually and to be an educational resource as well as a symbol of Bay City's glorious shipbuilding past.
In an ironic twist of fate, the Edson will use bollards and cleats from the ill-fated MV Jupiter, gasoline tanker that exploded and burned at the nearby Total Petroleum dock in 1990. The Jupiter explosion site is just downriver from the proposed ship museum dock.###
The mooring equipment was salvaged from the Jupiter by the SVNSM committee which also acquired two surplus five-inch guns from the Navy. The guns will replace armament removed from the Edson.
The SVNSM is seeking information on the history of the wood and steel dock on five acres owned by Bay County adjacent to the Independence Boat Launch.
County Executive Tom Hickner is proposing to the County Commission that the ship be granted a mooring site and access to the five acres.
However, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will not allow use of the boat launch road or parking lot by visitors to the ship because of single use restrictions in a federal grant. As a result of that prohibition, the ship museum is planning a separate access road and 65-car unpaved parking lot, according to Earl Hewitt, SVNSM committee member.
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