User:Gatoclass/SB/I. J. Merritt

Construction and design
I. J. Merritt, a wooden-hulled, screw-propelled salvage tug, was built in 1919 by A. C. Brown & Sons of Tottenville, Staten Island. She was named after Israel J. Merritt, head of the firm that ordered the vessel, the Merritt & Chapman Derrick & Wrecking Company of New York. While still under construction, the tug was acquired by the United States Navy and completed at the Brown yard under naval supervision. The vessel was launched at 2:35 pm on Saturday, February 8, 1919, after which a buffet lunch was served, with attendees including company officials, yard workers and a number of naval officers. Some days later, the tug was towed to the dock of the W. & A. Fletcher company in Hoboken, New Jersey, for installation of her engine and boilers. I. J. Merritt had gross and net register tonnages of 794 and 394 respectively, and a displacement of about 1,300 long tons. She had two decks, an overall length of 174 ft, beam of 34 ft, hold depth of 18 ft and mean draft of 13 ft. When new, the steamer was reported by several journals to be the largest salvage tug in American service as well as the best equipped, but in fact her Merritt & Chapman stablemate Relief, a steel-hulled tug built in 1907, was slightly larger.

The Merritt was powered by a three-cylinder, 1000 ihp triple expansion steam engine, with bores of 18, by 30 in stroke, driving a single screw propeller. Steam was supplied by two Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers with an operating pressure of 225 psi. The tug had an operational range of 10000 mi and a speed of 11 kn. In naval service, she was crewed by 8 officers and 50 men, while in later merchant service, she had a crew of between 24 and 26.

U.S. Navy service, August–December 1919
The Navy had originally intended to assign I. J. Merritt to its European naval salvage service in the aftermath of World War I, but these operations were concluded in May 1919, while the tug was still under construction. Accordingly, on completion of the vessel that August, she was reassigned by the Navy to serve in American waters with the 3d Naval District, under the identifier ID 3780. On December 13, after only a short time in this role, she was resold for $300,000 to her original owner, the Merrick & Chapman Derrick & Wrecking Company.

Merchant service, 1920–1935
Following her reacquisition by Merrick & Chapman, I. J. Merritt was homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, and would spend the remainder of her career in the salvage role. Some of the more notable activities during her merchant service are outlined below.

On 6 February 1920, the Old Dominion steamship Princess Anne ran aground on a sandbank a mile off Rockaway Beach, New York, during a gale, imperiling the lives of the 32 passengers and 72 crew aboard. A number of tugboats, including I. J. Merritt, were quickly dispatched to the steamer's assistance, but were unable to approach the vessel due to heavy seas. During the night, Princess Anne hull broke amidships. The following day, in spite of continuing heavy weather, the passengers were successfully disembarked by a police boat, and the crew the day after. Princess Anne was eventually declared unsalvagable, though salvage of her cargoes continued for some time.

In October 1922, the Standard Oil freighter F. D. Asche was caught in a hurricane off the Bahamas and driven about a mile (1.6 km) over reefs, losing most of her bottom in the process. Her survival, considered remarkable, was attributed to her Isherwood longitudinal framing design. I. J. Merritt and her stablemate Willard were dispatched to the stricken vessel, which was refloated after about three weeks by the use of internal pontoons. Following temporary repairs, the Asche was towed by the two tugs to New York's Robins Dry Dock in December for the completion of repair work.

On the night of December 16, 1921, the steamship SS Panama rammed the destroyer USS Graham off Sea Girt, New Jersey, damaging the latter amidships. Nobody aboard Panama was injured, but one of Graham's sailors was killed and six more injured. Thanks to the recent innovation of ships' radio, the Merritt & Chapman tugs I. J. Merritt and Willett were dispatched within five minutes of the occurrence of the accident, arriving at the scene a few hours later to tow the stricken vessel slowly back to port. In spite of Graham having been built only two years' prior at a cost of over $1 million, and repairs being estimated at a relatively modest $75,000, the Secretary of the Navy, Edwin Denby, decided to scrap the ship rather than pay the repair bill.

On January 1, 1922, the USSB steamship Manatee grounded after being blown off course while under tow to St. George's Harbor, Bermuda. After local tugs were unable to free the vessel, I. J. Merritt was dispatched from Norfolk to assist, arriving on the 3d. The Merritt refloated Manatee two days later, after which the tug made temporary repairs before towing the steamer back to Norfolk. On arrival, however, Manatee's owners decided to lay the ship up rather than effect further repairs.

On December 26, 1922, the Grace Line steamship Santa Rosa grounded in a fog outside Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Over the course of the following three days, much of the ship's cargo was removed by lighterage, but a fleet of seven tugboats was still unable to free the steamship, and I. J. Merritt was then hired, on a "no cure, no pay" basis. The Merritt supplied Santa Rosa with salvage anchors and heavy duty cables, by which means she was able to winch herself off the sandbar with Merritt's assistance, the tug later towing the vessel into the harbor. In a subsequent lawsuit, the court, noting that the Merritt "value is greater than that of all the other libeling tugs put together, and her equipment incomparably more efficient", found that the tug was primarily responsible for the success of the salvage, consequently awarding her the sum of $25,000, the other tugs each receiving $2,500 or less.

On June 16, 1922, the British steamer Domingo de Larrinaga grounded in shoal waters off Cape Charles, Virginia. I. J. Merritt was dispatched to her assistance, but the tug also ran aground and had to wait until high tide to extricate herself, after which she was quickly able to refloat the Domingo. The Merritt & Chapman Company subsequently sued for $70,000 in salvage fees, arguing that the locality was one of the most dangerous on the coast and that the services rendered by the Merritt had been "of a high order". In late 1923, the Merritt was engaged in multiple salvages along the coast of Jamaica, before returning to her Virginia homeport in December.

In March 1924, the Merritt & Chapman Company paid $10,000 for the salvage rights over the derelict battleships Alabama, Indiana and San Marcos, whose combined scrap metal value was estimated at $75,000. All three battleships had been sunk some years earlier by US Navy target practice in shallow waters of Chesapeake Bay, the first two having been sunk by the then-experimental means of aerial bombing (the US Navy regarded the bombing experiemnt as a failure, but the Japanese Navy concluded the opposite, and would subsequently use naval bombing to devastating effect in the early years of World War II). I. J. Merritt was assigned to the salvage, and by May had raised the Indiana, but her parent company later sold the salvage rights for Alabama to another company, and it appears that San Marcos was never successfully salvaged as she continued to be used for target practice through World War II.

refs

 * merritt-chapman fleet 1923
 * npc 1945-50 done
 * 1860 to 1885 done


 * namesake p.34
 * launch feb1919
 * details
 * full description (rudder)
 * boy scouts witness launch
 * capable of steaming 30k miles -npc 10k miles, plus launch etc -npc
 * a c brown and sons builder -htrust
 * abs 1922 engine dims -htrust correction
 * launch date -htrust
 * dimensions -htrust
 * "largest seagoing tug in country" -htrust
 * NHHC
 * resold for 300k? -htrust
 * too late for salvage service 1919-htrust
 * still fitting out -htrust
 * official no. 1920 -htrust
 * 1923 for later search -htrust
 * register 1919 -htrust
 * princess anne
 * manatee jan 21 p4024
 * texarcana 1921 -htrust
 * schooner james e. newsome anecdote -htrust
 * f d asche oil tanker 1922 -htrust another -htrust another another more info another p.17
 * more on asche p.123
 * register 1926 -htrust
 * 1933? register -htrust also company boats
 * Scuttled 1935 -sbh Abandoned 1935
 * still reg 1941? -htrust
 * hippocampus 1922 -htrust
 * berkshire 1926
 * hms dauntless cruiser 1928
 * santa rosa dec 22 summary


 * sub s19 courtsmartial
 * sub on bar image
 * sub "doomed" mar 1925
 * salvaged with image
 * merritt to try
 * merritt involved jan 25


 * advert 1878 -npc better
 * 1878 company trouble -npc
 * company renamed 1880, worth about 500k -npc more
 * company summary, photo 1922 -htrust
 * merger 1922 many details -htrust
 * big merger 1922 -htrust
 * reorg 1923 -htrust
 * company "best in world" -npc

old merritt

 * company book -htrust
 * launched sat 6 sep 1884 engines at philadelphia
 * built 1884, 359 grt still in service 1910 -htrust
 * decatur h miller 1884 -npc another
 * oliveto first job 1884 -npc
 * berkshire, also detailed description of tug 1885 -npc
 * brig mattie b russell, hard operation 1885 -npc more
 * leelanaw 1896 -htrust
 * uss maine -htrust
 * uss mocassin salvaged 1903 -npc
 * schooner merry 1907, tug big hp etc -npc
 * schooner Louise H. Randall 1894? -npc bit more
 * infanta maria theresa date? -htrust
 * sold 1915 -htrust
 * viscaya 1899
 * haggerty, f sharp, chittenden all merritt divers
 * more on haggerty and sharp
 * sinking of maria theresa
 * viscaya wreck, john chittenden diver chief
 * chit diving
 * chittenden obit
 * chittenden in command of m theresa when she sank
 * f r sharp capt 1898
 * edison film


 * ij merritt captain schooner salvage philly 1868 -npc
 * refloating new ironsides 1868 -npc
 * sunken vessels wetsern lakes 1872 -npc
 * coal barge, tug description (cyclops, neafie engine) -npc
 * bessie rogers 1875 -npc
 * steamer australian 1875 -npc
 * ontario ship 1876, merritt commanding relief -npc
 * 1877 steamer massachusetts, tugs frances and relief -npc
 * state of maine 1884 -npc
 * 1896 lamington rescue chittenden
 * 1898 mercedes (chittenden)

merritt

 * merrit bio 1936 -npc
 * merritt image
 * big house 1879 -npc
 * figurehead


 * schooner ij merrit sinks 1948 -npc
 * ashore 1881 -npc
 * fishing schooner ij merritt jr built 1886 -npc

merritt co formation

 * merritt bio, image
 * coast wrecking co 1860 etc
 * overview with images

princess anne

 * detailed description 1897