Battleship NJ drydock tour

[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.

[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."

[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.