Reefmakers to sink Reserve Fleet relic off Key West

BY PATRICK LYNCH

1:46 PM EDT , October 8, 2007

NORFOLK - Reefmakers, a New-Jersey based group that creates artificial reefs out of old ships, will soon sink a vessel that was once a relic of the James River Reserve Fleet.

The General Hoyt S. Vandenberg will be sunk off Key West next spring, after a 12-year bureaucratic effort to get approval for the project. The 530-foot ship was built as the General Harry Taylor during World War II and served in the European and Japanese theaters.

In 1963 it was fitted with satellite equipment, was renamed the Vandenberg and spent the rest of its Navy career as a missile tracker throughout the Cold War.

Reefmakers will sink the ship in 140 feet of water, where it will attract a diversity of fish species and coral. Many old Navy ships have been used this way, but Reefmakers and other cooperating groups hope to put much more scientific study into this ship and how it develops as a marine habitat.

The $5.7 million project is being paid for by the Maritime Administration — which oversees the James River Reserve Fleet — and taxpayers in Florida , where the project is seen as economic development because of all the scuba divers it will attract.