S.S. Keystone State

Named for the state of Pennsylvania, the keel of the S.S. Keystone State was laid in January 1965 at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego. The vessel was launched a little over nine months later.

When she was first delivered to American Presidents Line in 1966 , she was called the S.S. President Harrison. For the first seven years of her career, she was a “break bulk” cargo ship, meaning that she was designed to carry freight consisting of many small units rather than in containers. She was however converted to a container ship in 1973.

Nine years later, Harrison was transferred to the U.S. Maritime Administration and berthed at Suisun Bay east of San Francisco. A few months later, she was berthed with the James River Reserve Fleet in Virginia. During the summer of 1984, the vessel was taken to Defoe Shipbuilding in Bay City Michigan, where she was converted to a crane ship and renamed S.S. Keystone State.

Since then, the Keystone State has been maintained as part of the U.S. Navy's Ready Reserve Force. Currently, the vessel is berthed at Alameda near San Francisco, and can be activated within five days with a crew of as little as thirty-seven men.

Asbestos insulation was used extensively throughout the construction of seagoing vessels before 1980. The reason was because of fire danger, which is perhaps the most serious of maritime dangers. This was illustrated in a most graphic way in September 1934, when the cruise liner S.S. Morro Castle caught fire at sea off the coast of New Jersey, killing nearly 140 passengers and crewmen.

Of course, seeing an opportunity in increase their bottom line, asbestos industry lobbyists went to work on their members of Congress, which passed new regulations requiring the use of asbestos insulation in ship construction. Although the legislation was well-intentioned, asbestos product manufacturers were well aware of the health hazards of their products. Medical researchers had long suspected the toxicity of asbestos; their suspicions were confirmed by the mid-1930s.

Asbestos manufacturers then spent the next four decades hiding these facts from the public. The deception continued until 1977, when correspondence between the CEOs of Raysbestos, Inc. and Johns-Manville was discovered, exposing the existence of a corporate conspiracy to suppress health information about asbestos as long as possible. This has led to mesothelioma cases.

Asbestos disease and mesothelioma can take many years to show symptoms. Anyone who sailed or served aboard the S.S. Keystone State should consult with a physician and have a thorough examination even if s/he has not yet developed malignant mesothelioma symptoms as mesothelioma cases are most common.

Sources

Bowker, Michael. Fatal Deception: The Terrifying True Story of How Asbestos is Killing America. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

NavSource. “SS Keystone State (T-ACS 1)”
http://www.navysite.de/acs/acs1.htm