September 2025

When USS SLATER arrived in Albany 1n 1997, one of our top priorities was getting working heads aboard to support our anticipated overnight camping program. Fortunately, much of the removal of non authentic pluming fixtures had been accomplished in Manhattan by the SOLDESA volunteers. Starting off in March 1998, the troughs, seats, urinals and washroom mirrors for the aft and forward heads, among other materials, were delivered to storage in the Port of Albany from where it was held in storage in Portsmouth Virginia, following removal from ex-USS GAGE. .  

That same year, in September, Doug Tanner reported aboard for the first time and his first project was restoring the aft head. Rafael Suarez was tasked with chipping down to the compartment to bare metal. The project plan was to include a deep sink, wash basin, hot water heater, commode, urinal and installation of a septic tank. General Electric funded the project and provided materials. Closing out 1998, the crew from the GE Silicone Plant also got running water to the aft head. .

In April 1999, Doug Tanner and his crew from GE installed a hot water heater and continued their efforts to make the aft head functional. They had help the following month when the Michigan Chapter of DESA rolled into town for their second SLATER workweek. They primed the aft head portside. Our initial plan for sewerage was to use one of the aft fuel oil storage tanks as a waste holding tank. Doug Tanner went back to work there and in July, transferred all the fuel out of the aft service tank and began installation of the commode and pump out system. He isolated the piping, installed a vent to the main deck, and fabricated a new manhole cover with fittings for the suction piping, alarm float switch and sight glass. After that, he began working to install the 3" suction line to a new valve on the main deck aft, working alongside GE coworker, Lew Knott. By October, the system was essentially complete.

The next project was the restoration of the aft crew’s washroom, just forward of the head. The Greek Navy had covered the decks with ceramic tile, so tile removal was the first order of business. Gary Sheedy got a hold of an electric ninety-pound jack hammer and spent three weeks jacking out the tile and concrete that the Greeks Navy in the aft crew head and passageway. In some places the concrete was six inches thick, with ceramic tile on top. Tom Beeler worked in the aft head and removed deck tile around the compartment perimeter in preparation for installing the trough. The Naval Reservists from Albany and Glens Falls burned and ground smooth a lot of projections off the deck in the aft passageway and head. 

In April, the "Chipperdales" - Dick Smith, Chris Fedden, Pat Cancilla, Rafael Suarez and Earl Gillette - and the electricians were hard at work in the aft head, tripping over each other as usual, while Clark Farnsworth stayed out of everyone’s way installing the sinks there. By May, Don Martin dove right in on the needle gun with Dick Smith and Earl Gillette and began chipping out the aft shower stalls for the Michigan crew, who would be arriving the following week. Don stayed with it for ten days and got the stalls and the whole aft head chipped out and spray painted. Just outside the head, Tim Benner replaced all the wasted plate in the passageway outside the aft head. All that concrete on the deck pretty well ate up the steel. With rainy days in June, Dick Smith, Earl Gillette, Larry Rockwood, Dick Pavlovic, Pat Cancilla and Ed Whitbeck got the white touched up in the aft washroom and the deck painted. In July, once the paint was dry, Clark Farnsworth, George Erwin, and Red Hume mounted cabinets and completed the plumbing for the urinal. They moved the working urinal in the aft head, re- plumbed it into the septic tank, and installed a deck drain. On the starboard side, the head was completed with two urinals and a trough salvaged from USS GAGE. Summer ended and the starboard head painted out white.

We utilized the fuel oil storage tank as a sewerage holding tank for a couple of years, before we became concerned about the corrosive effect of the wastewater on the ship’s shell plating. To alleviate this problem, Doug Tanner and his shipfitters fabricated a 60 gallon stainless steel holding tank on the portside of compartment C-301-L and fitted it with a grinder pump and high water alarm. The waste was pumped up to the main deck and into a hose that connected us to the City sewer system. The fuel oil tank was cleaned out and our corrosion problem solved. 

In March 2004, Kevin Sage, a contract painter we bring aboard every spring to speed up the painting process, spray painted out the portside aft head. It was all dry in June when board member Earl Johnson went back to his old rate and gave us two days of pipefitting, repairing leaky freshwater lines in the aft head.

Insulation was still in disarray in 2007, and in January Stan Murawski began replacing missing and damaged insulation in the area of the aft head. Later in May, Mike Zarem led a team in the aft head that replaced all the missing fiberglass insulation in the overhead. They were hampered a bit by our learning curve and the lack of material once we learned what we really needed, but by the end of the week, all the material had arrived, and the job was complete. And in September of 2007, we welcomed "Ozwald Dumbrowski," the coconut headed bosun's mate, who never missed a DESA convention until he was restricted to the SLATER, where he presently resides in the aft head. This was a gift from longtime SLATER supporters, W.W. & Alice Montgomery.

A similar story could be told for the forward crew’s head. With continued painting and plumbing maintenance, the aft head continues to serve us today. Thanks to countless volunteers over the years who had a hand in helping aft head become the magnificently restored space that it is today, and the unfortunate volunteers who have the unenviable task of maintaining the wastewater storage system.