The Maritime Museum of Morro Bay (MMMB) is offering tours Saturday through Monday, July 2-4 at its newly established permanent location, 1210 Embarcadero.
MMMB volunteer Bernie Barkowski served on the DSRV-2 and will be available during the weekend to share stories from his service past.
While expanding the nuclear fleet, the U.S. Navy built two rescue submarines in 1971 after the loss of 129 men in the USS Thresher disaster. Intended for research, recovery and rescue of disabled submarines, she mainly served in many research assignments and was called to the recovery scene after a Marine helicopter crashed in San Diego.
The DSRV-2 Avalon was decommissioned in 2000. It is 50-feet long, 8-feet in diameter, weighs 37-tons and can dive to 5,000-feet carrying 24 passengers plus the crew. The Avalon became available for public viewing secured for MMMB on long-term loan basis after help from Congresswoman Lois Capps and former Morro Bay Mayor Bill Yates.
President and Director of MMMB, Larry Newland, will also be available to talk about the museum’s newest addition to the fleet, the World War II era tugboat Alma. It was donated in 1995 by the Kelsey See Canyon Winery family, once owners of Sylvester’s Tug Service.
Typical of tugs working harbors along the west coast in the early 1900s, it was drafted to patrol the Central Coast waterways during World War II anticipating possible attacks by Japanese submarines. The Alma was anchored off Cayucos on December 23, 1941, when torpedo explosions were heard. The Union Oil tanker Montebello had been hit by a Japanese torpedo and sunk off the coast of Cambria. The Alma rescued 22 survivors.
Newland can also tell about the day he spent with Hollywood set director James Spencer and special effects coordinator Peter Cheney in 2015.
“The DSRV-2 is integral to the story in a movie Hunter Killer they were working on,” said Newland. “They were researching the submarine to build a sound studio interior mock-up of the Avalon for a major Hollywood movie scheduled for release in 2017.”
Based on the novel Firing Point written by Don Keith and George Wallace, the movie is about an untested American submarine commander sent to rescue a crew off a Russian submarine under the polar ice in the Barents Sea.”
A $5 donation to help build the first structure for MMMB in 2017 will purchase a tour on July 2-4 from 10-3 p.m. of the inside the DSRV-2 (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle) and onboard a U.S. Coast Guard Rollover Rescue Craft. The Alma is available for up-close viewing and interpretive discussion.
Themed “Hug-a-Tug” t-shirts featuring a unique painting of tugboat Alma and another picturing the iconic DSRV-2 Avalonwill be on sale.
Information is available at www.morrobaymaritime.org or contact Judy Salamacha at .
