Faced with a deteriorating ship's hull which, in places, is paper thin, officials of the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission announced Thursday the public phase of a capital campaign to fund what they term “imperative” repairs to the World War II vessel.

The Generations Campaign goal is $17 million, Battleship North Carolina executive director Terry Bragg said at a news conference on the ship. Of that, $13.5 million will be needed for the repairs; the remainder will fund public education programming related to the World War II ship, which is the state of North Carolina’s memorial to the 10,000 state residents who died in that war.

During the campaign’s quiet phase, the battleship commission solicited major gifts from private individuals and organizations, and to date has raised $10.7 million, according to Bragg.

Repairing the rusting hull (a photo of one deteriorated area is at left) is a must, the director said, noting that the ship is not only an important part of history but also a major tourism draw in the southeastern North Carolina. Just in the past eight days, he said, about 12,700 people have visited the Battleship North Carolina.

Bragg said that in 2009 the commission was notified by the U.S. Navy that it needed to either develop a viable plan for the future dry-docking of the vessel for repairs or plan for the ship’s eventual disposal. “Scrapping is not an option,” he said.

Neither is taking the vessel to the nearest dry-dock that could accommodate it, which is in Norfolk, Virginia. The cost – an estimated $35 million – is prohibitive and the journey could further damage the ship, Bragg said. He added that the ship is 158 feet high and the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is only 135 feet high, so a portion of the bridge would have to be disassembled to allow the ship to pass downriver.

The chosen repair process is to create what effectively will be a permanent dry dock around the ship by building a cofferdam around it in its current location. A cofferdam, explained the battleship’s assistant director Chris Vargo, is a wall of rigid steel higher than the highest tide level that will allow workers access to all areas of the hull for all future maintenance needs.

A $3 million gift from the State Employees’ Credit Union announced in May will fund construction of a 10-foot-wide walkway, to be called Veterans Memorial Walkway, atop the cofferdam wall. It will be handicap accessible and permit visitors to view the complete exterior of the ship from all angles, Vargo said. A one-mile nature trail will connect to the walkway and provide an environmental education experience for visitors through wetlands property the commission owns on Eagle Island.

Recalling the “Nickels and Dimes” campaign among North Carolina school children that helped finance the cost of bringing the Battleship North Carolina to its permanent docking place in 1961, commission chairman Wilbur Jones said with a smile, “Now we want school children to go home and ask their parents to write us a $100 check.”

The public can contribute to the Generations Campaign in four ways, Bragg said.

“You can text ‘Battleship’ to 41444, or go to BattleshipNC.com and click on ‘Generations,’ or send us a check,” he said. “Or you can visit and make an on-site donation.”