Restoration

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Nathan Mattise

Applying Czekanski's operability ethos to a boat, the goal for PT-305 was always for everything besides the weapons to be fully operational and era-appropriate. "I made the directive that the boat needed to run full speed without any quibbling about anything," Czekanski says. "No, 'well, it can run full speed for 10 minutes'—we’re putting a lot of time and money in it."

Like any museum, time and funds are limited for the WWII museum. Each year, Czekanski, his colleagues, and a legion of volunteers would work within time and funding constraints in the name of slow and steady progress. Certain things had to be done earlier, like starting the restoration of that 13 feet of boat lost during oyster seeding, for instance (that effort spanned fall 2010 to fall 2014). By the end, more than 200 volunteers—including some genuine WWII veterans in the early days—pitched in across the effort's 10 years. The sheer numbers of supplies involved alone are staggering: 10,000 board feet of mahogany, 3,000 board feet of cypress, 39,000 copper rivets, three miles of caulked seam, 300 gallons of paint, and more.

Last summer, Czekanski showed Ars nine years of progress at the WWII museum's on-site restoration facilities. The first thing we asked was what kind of shape they received PT-305 in:

"Oh, horrible," Czekanski quickly replies. "When she went down to Galveston, the guys working on her had limited resources, but they did accomplish one big thing that helped us. When the boat became an oyster seeder, first time she went out with a load of shells on her she started to tip, started to tip some more, and everyone thought it was going to roll. The crew all jumps off, all the shells fell off the deck, and she pops up. Right after that, the oyster crew got a bunch of scrap on her to balance it out, lower the center of gravity. That eventually rusted up into a solid mass. The guys in Galveston got in there with picks and got that out before we picked it up, but the deck was in such a state that we brought her in by land, she was in no state to come by water. I was in the tail car, and every time we hit a bump a cloud of dust and splinters would fly in front of me."

The museum crossed small milestone after small milestone through the years. The first big step was acquiring the proper engines in late 2007. The original engines were replaced during the war, but PT-305 boasts the original style (Packard marines, not diesel) engines today. Back in 2007, Czekanski and company found a guy in Illinois who had bought a government surplus warehouse in the 1970s. The man had been using v12 Packard marine engines, about 1,400 horsepower according to Czekanski, for tractor pulls. In total, the man donated more than $500,000 worth of Packard parts "including engines, carburetors, and many other crucial contributions," according to the museum. Some materials were still in original WWII wrapping.

"We rented an 18-wheeler, parked it on his property, and he went around and loaded up the trailer to send it down," Czekanski says. "Some of the engines had probably been bad since the 1970s, and it would’ve been tough to get this done in any case. But what was lucky was he had stock parts left over—not only did he give engines, but he sent us 1,000 spark plugs."

For another Herculean contribution, look to PT-305's exhaust ports. Czekanski simply describes these aspects of the ship as valves that exhaust into the water for silent running or "you open 'em up and blow." "Most people chuck these at some point when you renovate PT boats," Czekanski says. "305 didn’t have 'em. PT-308 did, but it was in the worst shape [of boats we tracked] and actually sank at a dock. So we sent a salvage group who found five out of six of these."

The museum could never find a sixth of these bronze artifacts nowadays. Czekanski says just to cast the unique pattern would've been $15,000 easily. "Luckily, we found a machinist in Lafayette," he says. This represented one of more than 100 companies (many in Louisiana) that donated time, parts, and labor to handle everything from making exhaust valves to testing engines. "We loaned him one, he made a concrete model, formed this outer space by pounding a piece of stainless steel into the mold, then welded the pieces in," Czekanski says.

Among some of the other notable modifications completed at the WWII museum, the team upgraded the boat's power to ensure smooth sailing in modern passenger rides. Originally, PT-305 depended on a 24-volt DC system, according to Czekanski, "now we have shore power and generators on top of a 24-volt system." Today, the boat's analog gauges are supplemented with digital sensors, and its basic controls—a throttle to go forward, backward, or remain neutral—sit alongside a new control system with electronic interfaces monitoring engines.

Once a Jerk, always a jerk

Big ideas have been tossed around for how to use a newly sea-ready PT-305—everything from visits back to the Mediterranean to traveling the entirety of the Mississippi and its tributaries. But for now the old ship will stay close to home. Last fall, PT-305 finally left the restoration warehouse at the WWII museum. It navigated the tight streets of New Orleans' central business district, entered the Erato Street wharf, then traveled up the Mississippi to its new home via tugboat. After a few months of final preparation and testing, PT-305 officially opens for business at the nearby shores of Lake Pontchartrain this Saturday, April 1. Anyone interested in the soon-to-be weekly Saturday ride can buy tickets ($350 for a 90-minute experience through the museum website), and 45-minute deck tours will be available for $12 to $15 throughout the week.

But a few weeks earlier, the USS Sudden Jerk had its actual maiden (re)voyage. On March 16, local media, volunteers, museum staff, and PT-305's new crew gathered to rededicate the ship and take a preview ride. One surviving member of the crews who served on the PT-305 and a man who served on a sister boat, PT-308, were also scheduled for visits before the public opening, according to Stars and Stripes, a decades-old publication focusing on all things US military.

New captain George Benedetto told the magazine that PT-305 ran like a thoroughbred, and Czekanski added he's not sure how many times he'll ride before the feeling gets old. (Last summer, Czekanski told Ars that the restoration of PT-305 "will be among my favorites. It’s going to be really exciting to see this in operation.") It's not hard to share their enthusiasm considering the immense effort it took to get PT-305 to this moment—being one of four combat-veteran PT boats still in existence and the only one to operate, according to the museum. And perhaps best of all, the vessel reportedly stayed true to its character after all these years. To close its inaugural ride, one of the engines stuck on a bit too long, and the preview ended "more abruptly than anticipated, as the 1943 patrol-torpedo boat bumped brusquely into its berth," according to the local paper. Still a jerk after all these years, but quite a remarkable one at least.