Battleship NJ drydock tour

[Ken_NJ]

Saturday April 13th at 1pm Carol and I did the drydock of the battleship NJ at the former Philadelphia Navy yard. The battleship was in drydock 3 where she was completed in 1942. She was built in the slipway a few hundred feet from drydock 3, but the slipway has since been filled in and is now a parking lot. These pics are from Carol's phone. She took 60 pictures, I took 163. I also had a Gopro on my hardhat and my Sony Handycam. The hardhats where 'gifts' to those people that did the drydock tour. We also had to have protective eye-ware and steel tipped shoes. After the safety briefing we headed to the drydock where the NJ was brought in fantail first. There's plenty of video on Youtube of bringing the NJ into the drydock. We had 2 docents with us. The first one giving us an explanation of the ship and what was going on in the drydock. The other one brought up the end, making sure we stay on track. I was usually last taking pictures and video and gawking at what I was seeing. The drydock is 43 feet deep, 1,011 feet long and 144 feet wide and built in 1921. The bottom edges were covered in plywood. I suspect that is where the water was drained out into the pump house adjacent to the drydock.

Anyway, here are some pictures to start.




This shot is from between the two skegs of the inboard props.



A bilge keel. Note the plywood on the drydock deck. That line on the hull is where zinc's where, they are being removed and replaced with aluminum cathodic protection.



Interesting view down the starboard side of the ship.



There use to be paravane equipment on the hull behind me, but was removed decades ago at one of the reactivations.





You feel very tiny standing next to the NJ.









If you follow the battleship NJ Youtube channel you will see Ryan. He posts a video almost everyday. and explains all about what they are doing in drydock and many many things about the ship. Been following this channels for years. Here is me and Ryan.



Will post more as I go thru the pictures and resize them for the forum. Eventually I'll process the video as well.

What an awesome and impressive tour of the ship this was. I'll never have an opportunity like this ever again.

[rwtdiver]

Thank you, Ken!

Thanks for taking the time to take such great photos, and posting them on our forum.! :-))

Looking forward to seeing more.

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[Das Boot]

I’m rather surprised the screws are still on the ship. I would’ve figured they would have been removed, and put on display instead of leaving them attached never seen. Nice photos.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I’m rather surprised the screws are still on the ship. I would’ve figured they would have been removed, and put on display instead of leaving them attached never seen. Nice photos.

No need for jacking-gear (because of the four skeg/sub-keels), means no need to yank the screws.

[Ken_NJ]

Here's the video answer to that question.

[Ken_NJ]

Another video on the NJ's propellors.

[Ken_NJ]

And a video about locking the propellor shafts.

There must have been many many spare parts made to support this class of ships. I wonder what still may exist and where?

[Ken_NJ]

Last one about propeller shaft seals.

[Davjacva]

Ken, that is totally awesome!!! BB-62 is the only one of the four I haven't seen yet. I follow that guy on Youtube and he does a great job getting down in the minutiae sometimes. The first time I saw an Iowa-Class, it was the Iowa, and after Desert Storm is was in Norfolk. Shortly later, the Wisconsin was in. The gym I worked out at on the navy base was near the carrier piers so I'd drive down the waterfront and see what's in. One day, both the Iowa and Wisconsin were in. They were really spectacular to look at then for a particular reason. They were completely loaded out and didn't have much freeboard on the sides. They really sat low in the water. About 5 years later I'd see the Missouri when she was out in Bremerton in mothballs on our way to inspect subs up at Bangor. One time we saw it, spent about a week at Bangor, then went to San Diego for a few days, then we went out to Hawaii...and there she was. They had moved her during that 2 1/2 week interlude to become an exhibit. The next year I was on the Rickover and every time we'd pull in, sometimes at the shipyard, other times at the navy base, the Wisconsin would be across from us. It was really weird, and we didn't know what was going on with her. She looked way different as she was high in the water. So I went out to sea and we came back and she was finally gone. That weekend, we went to visit an elderly friend who lived at Harbor View, which is a set of high-rise condos in downtown Norfolk and I look out her living room window to gaze at the spectacular view of downtown Norfolk and Portsmouth across the river and I see...gray and nothing else unless you looked at the sky. They had moved it to Nauticus and it was next door. She was complaining about the loss of view and she eventually moved. Crazy. Awesome that you got to see it. There's a great story and video online when the Missouri got stuck on Thimble shoals for a few weeks. The new captain had been a sub captain before. Really spectacular story about getting her back off again. The Wisconsin got stuck there too, but not as dramatic (or stupid) as the Missouri.

[Albacore 569]

Why the need ot wear steel tipped shoes?

[Ken_NJ]

Jake, thanks for the stories. Always good to hear stories like that. I did read and see videos about the Missouri grounding.

Steve, probably an OHSHA thing. For those that did not have steel tipped shoes like Carol, they supplied them. Oddly enough, she said they were a bit awkward to walk in. To make it worse, the steps leading into & out of the drydock had short treads, so going up the steps made it pretty funky. Even for me with size 13 shoes going up I had to watch my step.

[Das Boot]

Well, that certainly answered my question. Thanks, Ken.

[Ken_NJ]

Besides the NJ, I was fascinated by the drydock itself. Here's a view of the shipyard from 1948.



I could not find much online about the slipways except what was here.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philad...s_and_slipways

The NJ was built in either slipway two or three which is noted below.



Judging by the marking on drydock 3 walls, I'd say it is 50 feet deep. The NJ draws about 35 feet. Here she is sitting in the drydock on top of the approximately 5 feet of blocks.



You can see the steps we had to walk down. In some older photos I saw what might have been an elevator at the end of the drydock.




Steps.





The end of the drydock. Note the depth markings.



The caisson which closes off the drydock from the river. Pretty amazing that caisson holds back the river. In the lower left water was pouring in. Any water collects in the pool at the picture bottom then is pumped back into the river somewhere.

The caisson can be filled with water. Once the ship is in place the caisson is floated into the drydock opening, then water is pumped in causing the caisson to sink into position. I wonder if and what the seals are to seal the caisson to the drydock? Maybe an interlocking series of slots of some sort? I don't know. Once the caisson is in position, divers go in to make sure the ship is sitting properly on the blocks. Maybe they also use a survey method for this as well?















This working crane should be pretty old. When the ship was being brought in, this crane held a line from the capstan and it was passed to the ship and secured. That one line pulled the ship into the drydock. Tugboats held the ship in line with the drydock keeping it straight.





This is the capstan that pulled the NJ into the drydock. It's maybe 4 feet or so in diameter. It's located across the street that goes past the drydock. The road is blocked off while the capstan is in operation.



Here's the capstan with the rope pulling the NJ in. The rope is stored on a cart and looks well taken care of since it is pulling in a 50,000 ton ship.



You can see the rope pulling the NJ in. Tugs are on the port side to keep the ship stable. There was a ship to the starboard so they had to stay on the port side. There are plenty of Youtube videos that you can watch this process. They had line handlers on each side of the ship that would secure side lines to bollards as the ship was being pulled in keeping her centered. The side of the drydock also has tires as rollers to keep her away from the drydock walls.





Here you can see the capstan (yellow). The old slipway she was built on is on the other side of the building (orange). The building at the bottom I believe is the drydock pump house (pink).



I'd love to get a tour of the drydock & pump house with explanations how it all works.

[Ken_NJ]

Battleship NJ survives an east coast earthquake while in drydock.

[JHapprich]

This is so impressive!

In 2011, i was allowed visiting the expedition ship "Polarstern", drydocked at Bremerhaven. One of the ships Senior electricians gave us a private tour from top to keel. The dock itself must have been dating back to the early 20th century, shaped to hold Dreadnoughts of the Imperial German Navy. Quite a view with the "tiny" Polarstern in it!

Now that dockyard is simply another league!

Jörg