I read with amazement the situation now facing the Battleship North Carolina, the World War II battleship-turned-museum moored in Wilmington. It seems the commission keeping the battleship afloat is looking to offer overnight camping on the ship to civic groups. State officials are calling for the ship to be heavily modified, adding accessiblity and safety features before it can happen. The ship fought in every major Pacific battle of World War II and now its greatest enemy are modern building codes. In bureaucrat-speak, they call it “a building whose shape (and coloring) resembles a ship.”

Uh, yeah. It resembles a ship, because it is a ship, dumbass! Do you think the Japanese lookouts, when they saw it, said “Captain, I see a building whose shape (and coloring) resembles a ship off the port bow?” I think not.

Now, I’m sympathetic to those with disabilities, and I applaud the role today’s building codes play in keeping the public safe, but this is a friggin’ battleship, people! It was designed to kill people! It’s inherently dangerous! You can easily crack your skull on the hatches. The ladders (stairs for your landlubbers) can make you dizzy, they’re so steep. There are pipes everywhere, rivets poking out of bulkheads, open hatches in the floor. Probably asbestos everywhere, too.

It’s a warship. It’s not the Holiday Inn. It was designed to do battle, not comfort. I hope the folks applying the codes and regulations can come to their senses and that they’re dealing with a ship, not a “building which resembles a ship.” Anyone berthing onboard ought to be sharp enough to notice the difference.

When it comes to damaging a battleship, enemy torpedoes can’t hold a candle to modern building codes.