Posted on 03/22/2008 6:12:07 AM PDT by grjr21
Towing the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy to Philadelphia for storage has proved to be a complex ordeal.
There's only a 20-minute window each day when it can be safely eased alongside Pier 4 in South Philadelphia, where it will be stored. That's the daylight high tide, when the swift current is slack.
High winds kept the big ship at sea Thursday and yesterday, with its small crew of line handlers camped out on the vast empty and cold ship.
The Kennedy was scheduled to enter the Delaware Bay at 9 last night and begin a slow 18-hour trek to Philadelphia.
The carrier is expected to arrive at the dock about 2 p.m. today.
The Coast Guard and river pilots were keeping the ship, dubbed "Big John," at sea until they were confident that it could get upriver and dock safely in good weather.
Once it enters the Delaware Bay ship channel, there are few places it can ride out a delay without disrupting critical shipments of oil, perishable fruit, consumer goods, building materials and machinery on one of the nation's most important avenues of commerce.
Four members of the Pilots' Association for the Bay and River Delaware will board the lead tug at sea and work in four-hour shifts until the Kennedy reaches Philadelphia at midday.
The journey will take more than twice the time required by a vessel moving under its own power.
The ship, which entered service in 1968, was modernized at a cost of $600 million as the last project of the old Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in the mid-1990s. It was decommissioned in August.
Aircraft carriers pose a special challenge on a busy river with big cargo ships and oil tankers moving in virtually all weather.
The river pilots who guide these cargo vessels have experience with the big floating airports' coming and going from the storage facility at the city's former Navy base.
And they know the river. They bring their own modern navigational equipment - laptop computers, global positioning satellite receivers, and precise up-to-date charts - with them when they board a ship. But they could work without all that. They must draw a detailed navigational chart of the river from memory as part of the test to become a pilot.
The 1,050-foot-long Kennedy, which displaces about 82,000 tons of water, is hard to maneuver, especially under tow. There is so much of what mariners call "sail area" to catch wind and shove it off course.
"If you lose control, it could knock a bridge down," said Capt. Michael J. Linton, president of the river pilots.
The Kennedy has a 4.6-acre flight deck, elevators that once hoisted its 70 combat aircraft from the hangar below, and other things that overhang its sides, a challenge for the six tugs that are bringing the Kennedy to Philadelphia.
Am I the only one to see something wrong with that bit?
Not only that but she underwent a $300Mil workover in 2003... must have cost a bundle to keep her running, too bad you can't convert her to a nuc....
The JFK had some many modifications from the time her keel was laid till the time she sailed that she became a class of her own. A review of her history shows numerous fires in port and at sea.
A VNAF Major landed a Birddog with his family aboard the Midway during the evacuation of Saigon.
Need to brush up on that Google. The Big E was launched in 1960, and commissioned in 1961. (Laid down in early 1958). Yes, parts of the carrier celebrate their 40th birthday this year.
The Kennedy was always problematical, and it ruined several careers.
F Kennedy - he gave away our bases in Turkey in the 60’s and just think how much that has cost us!
A guy at the airpark I live at has a bird dog.
He’s going to sell it when he completes his new legend cub.
Bird dog is getting very tired and I think he’s a little apprehensive of it at this point.
Many, many years ago I took a last walk through a USN ship I had sailed on for a couple of years. The next day she was going to be decommissioned. It felt like a tomb as I walked through it. It was almost as if it had died and it's soul had departed.
I can imagine sleeping on the JFK in winter under tow with all the ghosts wondering about.
I would like to recommend to all CV lovers the greatest novel about the life and near-death of a carrier. Check out “Hero Ship” by Hank Searls. He was on a different ship at Okinawa and witnessed the fight to save USS Franklin. A lot of that went into the climax of the novel.
I’ll defer to your superior knowledge on this issue. 1960 seems awfully early.
http://www.enterprise.navy.mil/About_the_Big_E.htm
http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/usa/surface.htm#cv
The Enterprise was based on contemporary conventional carriers, with 8 submarine reactors substituted for the conventional boilers.
On the other hand, Kennedy was supposed to be nuclear with what has become a more standard reactor setup, but the idiots in the White House decided to make it conventional.
Both the Kennedy and the Enterprise completed major overhauls in 1995.
Need to brush up on that math. Parts of the carrier celebrate their 50th birthday this year.
You are correct.
What’s with the 2007/2008 dates on the photos ?
You’d have to ask whoever wrote the caption and their editor.
Because no one uses competent copy editors any more. They rely on spell checkers and computers.
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