 Quick Menu Features * Sitemap * Home common ground  Raising the
Hunley Summer/Fall 2001, vol. 6(1)  Online Archive  *  Raising
the Hunley  (photo) Underwater archeologist working on the
Hunley project.   Bill Lipe  by Joseph Flanagan  The old
Charleston Navy Base is a sprawl of aging warehouses, storage
tanks, and elevated pipelines. Despite its size, and for all the
suggestion of activity, it is strangely quiet. The parking lots
are all but deserted. Mothballed ships lie still at dockside.
The Navy moved out in 1995, and the place has been quiet since.
But in a plain white structure set back off the main road,
events are unfolding that have captured the world's attention.
Inside, the setting is a cross between industrial functionality
and clinical precision. The uninformed visitor might not
understand what is happening here. Surrounded by freshly painted
steel and blinking computer equipment, an enormous oblong object
the color of earth is suspended in a series of padded nylon
straps. It is the focus of wh