U.S. Navy FRESH-1 Hydrofoil

The USS Aries Hydrofoil Museum is proud to announce the latest addition to our hydrofoil fleet. The FRESH-1. Everyone in the IHS community knows about FRESH-1, where she came from, what she was famous for, as all of this info is available on the IHS website. Most know she has been owned by Dave Symington, also known as Symington of Seattle for the past few decades. We have been in contact with Dave ever since being introduced by Sumi Arimas five years ago. Dave finally decided that the dreams he had for the FRESH-1, that she be restored to her original glory and be properly presented, would have to be done by someone other than he. Dave said he always felt our hydrofoil museum would be the perfect place for the FRESH-1. The end of the lease on the storage property was fast approaching, necessitating fast action to get the Ship relocated. The Aries Museum team descended on Bremerton, WA on a Friday afternoon in June after Bill and Bob drove strait through from Missouri, and we modified our work travel plans to go to Calgary via weekend layover in Seattle. By Saturday afternoon, the foils had been loaded, and disassembly was well under way. Monday morning the crane arrived to help in disassembly, and then Tuesday she was loaded on two flatbed trucks. While the FRESH-1 sped across the country, Bill and Bob Meinhardt finished up loading their truck and trailer and drove strait through again to beat the trucks to Missouri so a crane could be set up to unload her at the restoration shop.

During the process of disassembly, a local newspaper attempted to interview the brothers Meinhardt who were working constantly to meet the deadlines of cranes, and trucks. I had left the team due to work requirements leaving them even more short handed. They let the paper man know that they didn’t have time for his story, and suggested he call me in Canada as I handle publicity for the Museum. This of course offended someone who is used to people going out of their way to talk with him.When I gave him the facts, ever vigilant to share credit with the Meinhardt brothers since they do and always have done a lion’s share of the work at the Museum, he decided however that they didn’t deserve the fame that an article in his fine paper would bring and so completely omitted every mention of them. Fortunately, neither Bill nor Bob care much for publicity, however when the article was picked up by the AP, many Missouri papers printed the story. The Meinhardt family members and friends have not hesitated to give me a fair amount of ribbing about it. But I suppose that’s the price of fame.

The cabin and engine have been moved into the shop and await the beginning of the restoration.The vessel on the whole is in surprisingly good condition. Vandals had their way with the ship, and many things were stolen, but nothing that cannot be replaced. The engine still turns over freely, and we are working on an arrangement with an aircraft maintenance school to rebuild the engine.The Cabin suffers from some corrosion, but is basically intact. We have most of the specialized tools and technical capability to rebuild the cabin section which is more aircraft than ship.

The pontoons are in surprisingly good shape, and only require a bit of cleanup and painting to put back into service. 

While the controls, and all associated systems are missing, these are the items that would have been removed and replaced with modern systems anyway. We will add AC to the vessel, a small diesel genset to replace the turbine APU for efficient cruising and larger hullborne drives to increase hullborne speed for efficient hullborne travel. A new ACS for hullborne and foilborne cruising as well as an integrated bridge system (IBS) similar to the one put together for the Aries. The significant decrease in electronic component size and weight over the systems of the 1960’s will yield much more room in the cabin.