to the men who served afford the laffey, saving her is personal. point is the carrier uss yorktown known as the fighting lady which served in world war ii and vietnam and also recovered the apollo ast astronauts before being retired in 1970. but other historic ships around the country, the yorktown is in need of costly repairs. >> the wear and tear from the salt water. >> reporter: rasing repair money for these privately run museum ships is a huge challenge. >> when you're looking at tens of millions of dollars that it will take to restore the uss yorktown, you can't sell enough t-shirts to make that happen. >> reporter: already a dozen historic ships have been lost. this ship, a cold war era submarine now in danger of toppling over. repairing it will cost more than $3 million. so chances are unless there's a big donation, it will be sunk at sea, closing another chapter in u.s. history. >> if they did away with all the museums, it would be like getting rid of the battle field, whether, you know, like gett gettiesberg, vix vicksburg. >> and other sh