USS CASSIN

YOUNG

VOLUNTEERS

NEWSLETTER

MARCH, 2012

Volunteer Of The Year

Congratulations to Bruce Mac Donald for receiving the 2011 Cassin Young Volunteer of the Year Award. This award is given to an outstanding Volunteer by The Cassin Young Association. The award was presented to Bruce at the Christmas Party held at the Commandant’s House.

The meal was provided by Janet O’Connell and the Cassin Young Association. Thank you Janet from all the Volunteers.

As many of you know a documentary was made about the Cassin Young and it’s Volunteers by a very special Volunteer. Pin Yu, aka Alice.

This presentation was for Her Masters Degree at BU in Photo

Journalism. The short video required months of work interviewing Volunteers,former crew members and research that took many hours. The video was shown at the Christmas Party and viewed by all, there was not a dry eye in the place. The video was seen by Superintendant Cash and He suggested that it be sent to Washington. It was posted on YOU TUBE and went viral. Congratulations Alice on achieving an “A” on your project and bringing to light a very important piece of History as well as the Volunteers that maintain Her.

Yearly Dues

Mario would like to thank all of you that have sent in your contributions to the Sunshine Fund. We have been slowly building up this fund. The $84 is greatly appreciated. There is still time if you have forgotten. Checks are payable to :

Mario Libardoni

107 Howie Road

Braintree, Ma. 02181

Volunteers

It has been a while since our last newsletter and much has happened with the Volunteers and their efforts to restore Cassin Young.

We have some new Volunteers and again today another showed up. The Volunteers would like to welcome Jim Walker, Jim Grant, Bob Young and Jack Gelinas.

Jim Walker, Bob Young and Jim Grant came up from the USS Salem to give us a hand.

Jim Grant

Bob Young

I hope to have photos of Jack Gelinas and Jim Walker soon.

FLAG BEARERS

This great photo shows Mario reparing our flags with a new helper. Maggie caught on very quickly, well, she has a great teacher !

Group Photo 2001

New Kiosk

Thanks to Bill Dyer and NPS we will soon have larger kiosk to display ALL Volunteers photos, restoration work in progress, the awards that have been given to the Volunteers and the honor roll of all the great Volunteers that have passed on. We want the Vistors to see more of the Volunteers and the accomplishments that we have made. This new kiosk will be constructed under the planning and direction and the carpentry skills of Bruce MacDonald and Fabulos Phil Darling . We are even discussing lighting for better visiability.

Tall Ships Event

Although June/July is a few months away we are already discussing the Tall Ships in Boston. The Navy Yard will be buzzing with visitors that whole week. The Volunteers have discussed a few ideas to help permote the true meaning of a Navy Yard and the presence of a NAVY SHIP. I have discussed the idea with Bill Foley and need the necessary permission from NPS for the event. We thought that the Volunteers could make it a great event if we all dressed in period navy uniforms. I keep thinking about our great christmas party on the ship a few years back when we all dressed the theme. I have to pick a day, possibly Saturday June 30th.. We have a lot of work to do. We may need vintage military vehicles, (Sandy Shepherd?) a vintage fire truck,(Joe Eldrige ?) and some help getting a meal together on the ship.( any mess cooks want to help plan?) It would be great if the Radio Gang could open up and operate Radio Central.

We could make announcements on the 1MC,demonstrate a

General Quarters drill, have a some volunteers dressed as yard birds, we really could have a great day by bringing the ship alive.

I/we need to get going on this now and we are open to all the help/suggestions you can give.

Maybe we should have a meeting soon to discuss this. WE NEED YOUR HELP with this event !

I may possibly be able to help with chambray shirts but need to know if you need a white hat, anyone want to help with that a uniform list ? Thanks in advance.

Hanky is due to have a knee replacement on March 16th at The Winchester Hospital. He will be confined to quarters for a bit after and would love to hear from you.

I did not realize that the newsletter was basicly the only link many of our volunteers have to the ship. I got a call a few weeks back asking about the newsletter and realized how much you look forward to it.

The main topic for all of us is our status and once again,almost a

year later, I have no news about our fate. We are still in dry dock. I can only hope as well as all of us that the decision to repair Her is made soon.

The volunteers over the past year and a half have taken our appeal everywhere we could.

This is not the end of our endeavor to save Her and quite possibly we will come up with another plan on our own to get Her repaired. You may be hearing from us very soon. We need to act now.

New NPS Personel

The NPS has added some new talent to help out their staff. We welcome Steven Duffy, plumber, Brandon Sexton, Curitorial and Steve Bishler who will be assisiting Ed Locke on the ship.

We have received some great help from NPS maintaince with many pressing issues. All our requests have been taken care of with an item(s) or a answer. The best news is our new christmas lights will be ordered soon. The old lights that had been put up for many years were deemed a

safety hazard. We will not be going LED but stick to the traditional bulbs.

We have been asked by the NPS to help them with a new program that will benefit everyone. Basicly it is a program to account for time, projects,materials needed and a preventative maintence plan for the ship. This is a computer driven program which they have supplied us with a new computer. Thanks to Ed Locke,Bill Dyer,Dan McMunn and Tim Croteau.

Special thanks to Jim Hewitt for his CAN DO attitude in his quest to inventory,catalog and test 4,568 vacumn tubes, plus every spare part from a 3/8ths bolt,light fixtures, a thousand other items and neatly place them in storage so Steve Braind can go and mess everything up.

Jim’s work on the 1MC/General Quarters/Chemical/Collision Alarms along with Jim Walker and Bob Johnson has payed off, the system is now restored.

Chris Bradford has taken on a new career that unfortunately keeps Him away from the ship for

weeks at a time. We all miss you Chris.

CAPTAIN Tim Gover

This will probably be the last photo of Captain Tim on the Fire Boat. Tim is retireing next month and devoting his efforts to The Revolution which incidently has been recently painted “ HAZE GRAY” and will be underway very soon. We are planning a Volunteers cruise on this great old YP, admission is by period dress only, get your uniforms out !

I am trying to squeeze in a road trip in April/May to the WW2 Museum and Antique Boat Museum in New Hampshire. I will let you know when I work it out.

Bruce MacDonald will hold the Volunteers Clambake this year on

July 20th at Tuck’s Point. Captain Gover has a new shallow draft boat. TIM, can you help us out with transpotation ? Of course we can travel the traditional way. Last year it was such a great time and a perfect setting as well. Hank loved the lobster !

Lightship Nantucket

The Lightship Nantucet is seen here making Her way back to East Boston after some much needed hull work at the Fitzgerald Ship Yard in Chelsea.

The cost was no where near what our estimated cost for repair is. It sure would be nice if Fitzgerald ShipYard could assist the Cassin Young with some sort of alternate

repair plan.

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Having read the USS Slaters Newsletter, spoken to Rich Angelini at Battleship Cove and Jason Hall on the New Jersey the economic outlook for museum ships is pretty bleak. It really is up to all of to stay focused and be positive. WE CAN DO this.

Thanks to Terry Miller of the Tin Can Sailors Magazine for publishing our article. The exposure was great. We owe Terry a little favor, next time He is up to the TCS office He needs

our help sorting through some manuals.

Thanks to Bob Harris and Curitorial, the Historical Ships Furnishings Report is being used as a guide to place food,games,coffee cups and diner plates in the Chief’s and crew’s mess. If you have any of this style dinner ware at home and want to donate it it would be appreciated and displayed on the ship.

We need a coke machine to finish off crews mess. Do you have one in the basement, 50’s vintage ? We still need hardcover books for book shelves etc.

Crew’s Mess

Crew’s Mess

Chief’s Mess

Crew’s Mess

Bedding

With Bob Harris’s continuing project of outfitting crews berthing, it realy is taking shape. There is still some more restoration work needed and the placement of uniforms,bedding blankets etc. Many of the foam mattresses have deteriorated.

Curitorial has shown some willingness to remedy the problem with the old foam mattresses. Bob Johnson did some extensive research trying to find replacements. He used the material tags from the old ones to contact the vendors. No luck. The plan is to remove the old foam mattress cores, gather up the covers,about 265 of them, have them cleaned. We can then install new foam cores .

NPS I D’s

Please check your ID to see if you have expired, if so call the ship and talk to Ed Locke 617 242 5604 . Ed has asked to have a new card filled out with your name,address,emergency contacts etc. Can’t come down, call Ed!

Thanks to Frank Lawton for His inspiration on getting Me moving with this newsletter. I realize how important a link this is to you and all the other great volunteers that are on assignment !