NEW YORK, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- The USS Intrepid was finally freed Tuesday from the New York pier where the retired aircraft carrier has been docked for 26 years.
A large group of tugboats pulled the floating museum down the Hudson River to Bayonne, N.J., NY1 reported. The Intrepid is to get a complete overhaul there and return to midtown Manhattan in 2008.
An attempt to move the 35,000-ton carrier last month ended ingloriously with the Intrepid stuck in the mud.
"She didn't move as fast certainly as I would have liked her to go, but she eventually got out into the midstream of the federal channel, and that was all we needed because the mighty Hudson River took her right out into the center channel," said Bill White, president of the Intrepid Air, Sea and Space Museum.
As the Intrepid passed the World Trade Center site, the vessel unfurled a big U.S. flag. N.Y. firefighters watched from the site, the report said.
"You kind of get lost for words. You don't always know what to think when you see something like that. It's definitely special," Jonathan Papadimitrios, a firefighter, said.
