Navy Ships

WASHINGTON - The Navy has issued orders to replace urinals on the surface fleet with a "gender-neutral" commode, known as the "Stainless Sanitary Space System." Within several years, 3,000 "heads," or bathrooms, are to be converted, at a projected cost of $187,000 apiece, to a new modular design that is easier to clean, cheaper to maintain, and more suitable for female crew members. A single bathroom can contain several commodes. Republican Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland said he intends to launch an investigation because he fears the conversion could hurt military readiness.

As part of the Navy's effort to dismantle its outdated ships, Baltimore Marine Industries Inc. has won a $4.1 million deal to scrap seven ships, a Navy spokeswoman said yesterday. The ship-breaking job is BMI's second since it was chosen as one of four companies to dismantle U.S. ships under a federal pilot program that began last year. The Sparrows Point shipyard finished dismantling the USS Patterson this year for $4.2 million. "It's a welcomed piece of news at this time of the year," said David Cassidy, BMI's president.

OGDEN, Utah -- Navy entered last night's NCAA tournament first-round game as the No. 16 seed in the West Regional, representing a little-known conference that offers no scholarships. Still, going against the fifth-ranked team in the country couldn't rob the team of its dreams."We [felt like we] could make history," Navy coach Don DeVoe said of the fact that a top seed has never lost to a 16th seed. "We wanted to win the basketball game."For 33 minutes -- a lot more time than most could have imagined -- the Midshipmen were able to hang with Missouri and frustrate the first team since 1971 to finish a Big Eight regular season undefeated.

The former Navy hospital ship Sanctuary, a relic of World War II and the Vietnam War, began another voyage of rescue yesterday -- this time to help treat casualties of the 1990s drug culture.The short, tug-powered trip will allow the vessel to be refitted for its new mission of helping recovering substance abusers.At 4: 16 p.m., two tugboats nudged the 14,000-ton vessel from a berth at Pier 5 in Fairfield and into the Patapsco River. The voyage around Fort McHenry to North Locust Point lasted a hour.

A lucrative Navy ship-scrapping contract that would have meant work for 200 people at Baltimore Marine Industries Inc. was awarded to an out-of-state company, officials said yesterday. The Navy is nearing the end of a pilot program to dismantle ships on U.S. shores instead of selling them to companies that scrap them overseas - often under unsafe conditions that have led to worker injuries and deaths. Baltimore Marine, the Sparrows Point shipyard formerly owned by Bethlehem Steel, had won a $3.8 million contract to break up the frigate USS Patterson - a job that is all but completed - and was competing against Metro Machine Corp.

The USNS Comfort hospital ship will leave Canton Pier on Saturday morning for its biggest mission ever, taking a wide range of medical care to earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Military Sealift Command spokeswoman Laura Seal said the staff of more than 600 (including 560 medical personnel and 65 civil service mariners) will reach Haiti on Thursday for an open-ended mission. And the crew expects to encounter horrific conditions on the island. "When we go to casualty situations on a grand scale, we're going to see things like skull fractures, aneurysms and neurological issues," said Chad Singer, a hospital corpsman from New York.

A retired Navy hospital ship, abandoned by its previous owner and ostensibly bound for Greece under a new buyer, must remain in Baltimore's harbor after the Environmental Protection Agency obtained a warrant this week to search it for toxic chemicals and secured an injunction barring it from being exported. The multiweek delay will cost new owner Potomac Navigation Inc. hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. The company bought the vessel Sanctuary for $50,000 through a court-ordered auction in August.

Michelle Howard was 5 years old the first time a classmate called her a name using a racial slur. She ran home crying to her father, an enlisted man in the Air Force and a strict disciplinarian. "My father picked me up and shook me," says Howard. "He shook me and he said, `You get used to it, little girl. You've got to toughen up. That's just the way it is.'" It was not the tender comfort she had sought, but Howard, now the first female Naval Academy graduate to be promoted to rear admiral, would need just that kind of resolve to make it through Annapolis.

OTIS AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Mass. -- Five days after the plane he was piloting crashed into the waters near the summer home he loved, the body of John F. Kennedy Jr. was raised from the ocean floor yesterday as his relatives looked sadly on.This morning, Kennedy is expected to be buried at sea from the deck of the USS Briscoe, a Navy destroyer, in a Roman Catholic service.As the search ended yesterday, Kennedy's body and those of his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, were lifted onto the USS Grasp, a Navy salvage vessel, authorities said.

The former Navy hospital ship USS Sanctuary, which served in the aftermath of World War II and in Vietnam, has been sold and is now under tow from Baltimore to Brownsville, Texas, for recycling. The move marks the end of a 22-year residence in Baltimore Harbor that was troubled by deterioration, failed business ventures and lawsuits. The Sanctuary left the harbor Wednesday. Two suits are still pending. But the 529-foot ship's former owner — Potomac Navigation, Inc. — is in settlement talks with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.