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Connie ain't gonna go out and sink enemy subs, but technically she IS in active service, she has crew, officers, etc. and is a beautiful ship.

And She does go out to sea, once a year, to maintain that active status. Since her last refit, almost a rebuilding, she is now capable of doing so on her own, that is under sail, not being towed. I had the pleausre of visting her during that refit.

Last time I was out in Boston I toured her. A friend of mine is into model ship building, and in fact has been working on a model of the USS Constitution. I looked through the museum shop after touring her, and picked up an item for him.

At Christmas, he opened up an elaborately wrapped box, to find a non-descript block of wood in it. He looked at me quizically, so I handed him a card. Said card identified the block of wood as having once been a part of the USS Constitution; after her last refit in the '70's, pieces of the wood that was removed from her were kept, and are being sold. I told him I thought that it might make his model more significant if it incorporated actual wood from the ship it was a model of. He was pretty excited about that.

I looked at the info about that refit. Apparently they found that during a previous refit, some diagonal braces that had gone along the inside of her ribs had been removed. Now that they've been replaced (these are long, large braces, only a couple or so on each side), she's seaworthy again.