First stop this morning was the Ganghwa Battleship Park - home of the ROKS Masan, DDK-955.
Masan, fourth of the Ulsan class light frigates, was built at the Korea Tacoma shipyard in Masan (near Busan) in southeast Korea. Masan was launched on 26 October 1984, delivered on 30 July 1985, and commissioned on 7 August 1985.
The Ulsan class frigates were the first major warships constructed by South Korea. They displaced 1500 tons and were heavily armed for their size with two 3-inch guns, four twin-30mm guns, 8 Harpoon missiles, a Mistral anti-aircraft missile launcher, two triple Mk-32 anti-submarine torpedo tubes, and two depth charge racks. They had a two-shaft CODOG propulsion system, with two LM2500 Gas Turbines, and two MTU Diesels, which allowed a maximum speed of 34-36 knots.
The museum was about 20-30km North-West of Seoul, close to the border. Finding this place isn't easy. As far as I can tell they don't have a website in English, and Google Maps doesn't recognise 'Ganghwa Battleship Park' 'ROKS Masan' or 'Ganghwa Hamsay Park' which it is also sometimes called. Getting there took nearly three hours - it is well outside the scope of Seoul's excellent metro system, and so you end up taking two very slow busses that have stops every few hundred metres, plus more traffic lights than you can possibly imagine. But if you wanted to drive, they had plenty of parking there.The ship is aground on mud-flats and was fully out of the water when I was there (at low tide), but I understand she looks a bit different at high tide. Due to the low-lying ground around the area, she is pretty prominent and can be seen from quite a way away.You have access to most of the upper deck, as well as through pretty much the entirety of the 1-deck and above. There is still a lot of equipment on the ship - the C-I-C and Sonar Control Rooms still have a lot of equipment in them, although there are a few gaps. The ship is well maintained, there isn't a lot of corrosion, and they had the main air-search radar rotating. There is quite a bit of interpretive signage around - but all in Korean, as were the museum brochures that were available.Entry was only about $AUD3. There was no sign of a shop there, and there was nothing else to see apart from the ship and a ticket booth (although the area around the ship really is quite scenic). Main downside this time of year is that Korea is damned cold, and the upper decks were heavily iced. They had put down anti-slip surfaces, but these just appeared to collect water which was completely frozen and slippery as hell. I managed to get around the ship without falling over once, but it was a close-run thing - they obviously don't labour under the same WHS regulations that we do!The staff were very friendly and helpful - although like just about everyone I have met here - they don't speak a word of English. This is a good, well-run museum - however unless you have my particular strain of OCD and need to visit all of them, it is probably easier to visit one of the other Ulsan's that have been preserved (there is one each in Seoul, Ulsan and Changwon (near Busan)).
