www.bbc.co.uk A former US aircraft carrier turned floating museum and popular New York attraction is finally heading for a refit after being freed from mud.

Tugs managed to pull the USS Intrepid off its Hudson River mooring, a month after a previous attempt failed.

The giant vessel is expected to re-open as a museum in 2008 after the $60m (أ‚آ£30.4m) overhaul is completed.

It lost 270 crew members during the war against Japan in the Pacific and was later used as a recovery ship for Nasa astronauts returning to Earth.

The boat was decommissioned in the 1970s, but was saved from the salvage yard when a developer chose to turn it into a military and space museum.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists have visited it at its moorings on the west side of New York.

The "refurbishment and renovation" in Bayonne, New Jersey, will repair damage and open new areas up to the public, officials said.

The recent ceremony was low-key compared to the fanfare organised for the first attempt to move the boat a month ago.

Hundreds of dignitaries watched that time as tug boats failed to extricate the aircraft carrier from its muddy berth.

This time crew members aboard the vessels cried and congratulated each other as the vessel broke free.

"It's like it used to be, only better. There's no bloodshed," Felix Novelli, a World War II veteran who served on the ship's crew, told the Associated Press news agency.