Pacific Battleship Center News

PSX ONE coating restores ‘Battleship of Presidents,’ now an interactive naval museum. The USS Iowa protected America for nearly 50 years. Now PSX® ONE coating, an advanced marine coating introduced last year by PPG Industries, is protecting the ship. Known as the “World’s Greatest Naval Ship” and the “Big Stick,” the 887-foot-long, 45,000-ton USS Iowa was first deployed in 1943. It is also called the “Battleship of Presidents” because it hosted more visits by U.S. presidents than any ship of its kind, including its historic escort of Franklin D.

Surrounded by pleasure boats and other vessels, the 887-foot long, 58,000-ton battlewagon was towed through the bay and passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Crowds watched from both sides of the bridge as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sockeye provided an official escort and the San Francisco fireboat Phoenix led the way. At the St. Francis Yacht Club on San Francisco’s shoreline, officers and crew members of the USS Decatur, outfitted in their dress whites, saluted as the Iowa drifted past, Rogers said.

Harbor Commission Approves Environmental Impact Report, Lease Agreement; Historic Battleship Plans to Open to Public July 7. The Los Angeles Harbor Commission today voted unanimously to create a new home for the historic battleship, the USS IOWA, in a prime location along the LA Waterfront at the Port of Los Angeles. In separate actions, The Harbor Commission approved the lease agreement and an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) necessary to bring the World War II icon to the LA Waterfront  where it will be converted to an interactive naval museum and living memorial.

Following years of aging in the San Francisco Bay area’s ghost fleet, the 887-foot long ship that once carried President Franklin Roosevelt to a World War II summit to meet with Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai Shek is coming to life once again as it is being prepared for what is most likely its final voyage. Firing its 16-inch guns in the Arabian Sea, the battleship Iowa shuddered. As the sky turned orange, a blast of heat from the massive guns washed over the ship. This was the Iowa of the late 1980s…

USS IOWA Takes on Iowa Coins, Regains its Mast, Prepares for its Final Journey; The Battleship of Presidents will open as an interactive naval museum in Los Angeles. The time-honored tradition of adding coins to the mast of a ship for good luck took place as two Iowans stood atop a 205-foot-tall platform and dropped Iowa state quarters into the mast of the USS IOWA as it hung from a barge crane. Former Iowa legislator Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny and Becky Beach of Des Moines released a handful of coins into the mast shortly before eight welders reattached it to the historic battleship.