Baltimore-based World War II-era Liberty Ship John W. Brown scheduled for dry dock repairs. Will it return?

A World War II relic in Baltimore faces a fundraising deadline to stay afloat.

The John W. Brown, built in 1942 to transport cargo and troops, is leaving for Norfolk, Virginia, on July 13 for dry dock repairs priced over $1 million.

Project Liberty Ship, the nonprofit organization that maintains the ship, received a $500,000 matching grant for dry docking through the National Park Service in December 2022, meaning it must raise $500,000 on its own or receive nothing.

The deadline to match the grant is Aug. 15, and organizers say the volunteer-operated ship is still around $45,000 short of its goal.

The John Brown will depart later this month but might not return if it can’t afford the bill.

“We’re all there because we like history, and we want to honor shipbuilding,” Dick Sterne, who volunteers in the engine room, said. “We do this to remember Baltimore’s industrial past and maritime heritage of shipyard workers.”

Sterne said the boat must undergo a dry dock inspection every five years per Coast Guard regulations and there isn’t anyone in Baltimore who does them. Sterne said the process involves disassembling valves and ultrasound tests of the hull thickness.

If Project Liberty Ship misses the fundraising goal, the ship will not be inspected nor permitted to sail. Sterne said the organization could try asking the Coast Guard for an extension.

A 40-person crew will operate the ship on an 18- to 20-hour trip to Norfolk. Sterne said the ship burns close to a barrel of fuel or 42 gallons per mile, putting fuel costs for the journey to dry dock alone around $60,000.

For those who volunteer on the ship, it’s important to keep sailing.

“If you ask anybody involved, there is one thing that separates the Brown from any other museum — the vast majority of the ship operates. That’s the bottom line,” said Greg Mucci, who worked as a mechanical engineer on ships out of Sparrows Point in the 1980s before starting to volunteer on the John Brown.

Mucci said the ship’s inner workings and engine are a trip back in time. There is an original depth finder from 1942 that no longer works. Parts of the ship were put together with rivets instead of welding.

“I’m an engine guy. I can’t comment on anything above the main deck. The engine room is essentially historically correct. It’s not 100%, but it’s pretty damn close to being the way it was in 1942,” Mucci said. “It’s a triple expansion reciprocating steam engine. That technolgoy dates to 1880. On board the Brown you have technology from 140 years ago, and it still operates today.”

The ship, named after a labor organizer for the Shipbuilding Workers of America at Bath Iron Works in Maine, operates as a museum, school field trip destination and maritime classroom. Mucci directs a summer internship program through Anne Arundel County Schools that has three high school students enrolled for 134 hours this summer.

“We involve them in hands-on experience fixing things,” Mucci said. “They’re part of our operations crew and oilers in the engine room. It’s a unique learning experience.”

The 441-foot Liberty Ship has been docked in Canton, and last month hosted youths from the Navy’s and Coast Guard’s Sea Cadets program.

Stacia Miller, a volunteer for over 20 years who is now the treasurer for Project Liberty Ship, said fundraising efforts were hindered when a living-history cruise was canceled due to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26.

“We want to educate future generations and get them involved as much as we can into the maritime profession,” Miller said.

Construction of the Liberty Ships began in September 1941, and by war’s end in 1945, some 2,700 had been built.  As the workhorses of the American war effort, they transported two-thirds of all cargo that left the U.S. during the war. The John W. Brown could carry as much as 9,000 tons of cargo and as many as 500 soldiers.

Following the war, the John W. Brown was lent to New York City, where it served as a maritime high school until 1982. After floating dormant in New York and, later, Norfolk, the ship arrived in Baltimore in August 1988. Following extensive renovations, almost all accomplished with volunteer labor, it was back sailing under its own power in August 1991. One other Liberty Ship, the Jeremiah O’Brien in San Francisco, is still in operation. In 2000, the John W. Brown sailed to dry dock in Toledo, Ohio, traveling over 5,000 miles to the Great Lakes and back through the St. Lawrence Seaway.

“Payday is to operate the ship,” Mucci said. “That’s our goal: another payday.”