On April 27&28 the sail of the SSN-703 received a fresh coat of paint. Here are some photos of the Working Party and our freshly painted Sail that was completed today in Buffalo, NY.

Shipmates Dan Schiebel, MM2 – 65-69, Don Smith, MM3 – 65-69, Mike Speiser, MM2 – 63-69, Bruce McCausland, ET2(SS) – 79-83 and USSVI member Don Smith made short work of this Project. 

Dan and his crew traveled from Indiana and Ohio to help and arrived at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park at around noon time yesterday to start this project.  After finally getting squared away with the paint and other supplies they started this project and found that they still needed a few more things.  Unfortunately it started to rain around 4 PM or so and they had to quit until this morning.

Don Smith from the USSVI started this morning at the crack of dawn grinding down the rust and getting the Sail ready for paint. Between the 5 of them they prepared and painted this Sail in record breaking time without so much as spilling a drop of paint on the concrete pad, the Plaque or the numbers (703) on  the sides. According to Dan It looks beautiful. From the photos he sent I would have to agree, it would make a Boatswains Mate proud.

Dan said that even though they got off to a slow start, they worked diligently as a team to complete this project.

The Sail Painting team will meet tonight for dinner and tomorrow Dan and his working party will head back to their homes in Ohio and Indiana. 

On behalf of the USS Boston Shipmates, Inc. and the committee I would like to express our gratitude to all of them for their hard work, efforts and their time to complete this project.

Thank you all.

Barry
Barry L. Probst

President / Secretary
USS BOSTON Shipmates, Inc.