navy veterans now in their 70s have volunteered to help preserve the uss laughy, a destroyer built during1945, the laughy was hit by five come coz cities and three bombs killing 31 crewmembers. to the men who served afford the laffey, saving her is personal. also at patriot's 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. hi