You don’t really realize how big these things are until you’re standing right next to them.
You also don’t realize just how large the infrastructure supporting these things is until you see it.
(If you live in Texas, or want to make a trip, the Battleship Texas Foundation is doing these tours through April 30th, only on Sundays. You can find details here if you’re interested.)
(This was a Christmas present from my beloved and indulgent brother and his family. Thanks, folks!)
Thanks for posting this. I didn’t know they were doing dry dock tours. I have been on 2 hard hat tours and will try to make this one. On my first hard hat tour, they let us go all the way back to the stern to the manual rudder steering room and you could touch the bulkhead. On the second tour they closed that room off because they were afraid you could push your hand through the stern.
You’re welcome, Jim. If you do make the tour, you might let me know.
My impression is that the tours are not fully booked up most of the time: there were about five people in my group, not counting the two tour guides.
I took a fair number of other photos, mostly showing just how bad things had gotten. In a lot of those photos, you can see numbers written on the hull: those numbers represent the thickness of the steel at that point. If I remember correctly, anything under .500 inch is bad. And there’s a lot under .500 inch.
Never been in a drydock but I have been around the Yorktown aircraft carrier in Charleston harbor fishing, even waited out a thunderstorm under it. I couldn’t imagine it being in drydock.
Curious when that section of the hull was welded instead of riveted? Damage repair? Overhaul? After decommissioning?
Anyone know?