Missouri In For Repairs

October 28, 2009
By Katie Vanes
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive

| RSS |

Del.icio.us

Katie Vanes

Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard
Public Affairs

PEARL HARBOR - With years of experience and the help of four tug-boats, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard workers successfully maneuvered Battleship Missouri into Dry Dock 4 Oct. 14. After the docking team pumped 54.3 million gallons of water out of the dock, Missouri settled on more than 300 strategically placed keel blocks as her gallant guns pointed toward the sunset. The 887-foot-long, 54,889-ton floating memorial will undergo $18 million worth of repairs over the next three months.

Best known for her “surrender deck” where Japanese officials signed documents ending World War II in the Pacific on Sept. 2, 1945, the “Mighty Mo” has spent the past 11 years at Pier Foxtrot 5 along Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor. The move began at 6:50 a.m. with the caisson in place at approximately 11 a.m. and was settled by 6:30 p.m. to end the day.

The movement from Pier Foxtrot 5 to Dry Dock 4 was planned by the shipyard docking office, naval architects and the ships project team in conjunction with BAE Systems Ship Repair Hawaii and the USS Missouri Memorial Association.

Shipyard civilian and military personnel said they were honored by the opportunity to work on such a historically significant battleship.

“We take great pride that our shipyard is helping to preserve one of the greatest symbols of victory in World War II - the Battleship Missouri,” said shipyard Commander Capt. Gregory R. Thomas. “We trained hard, studied the challenges thoroughly and built a great Navy-contractor team ready to jump into action at first light.”

Dockmaster Sonny Deltoro played a crucial role in the process by overseeing all planning and execution of the operation, including the preparation of pre-evolution briefs and docking schedules, monitoring safe movement of the vessel, and issuing effective communication throughout the maneuver.

“The shipyard has done a lot of nontraditional work in the past, but nothing this monumental in the last 10 to 15 years,” said Deltoro, whose team underwent specific training for docking the huge ship.

Shipyard engineers carefully studied the unique design of Missouri’s hull configuration and shipwrights cut the wooden portion of the massive keel blocks, weighing four tons each, to support structural beams within reinforced sections of the hull, explained Naval Architect Jason Morrison.

Docking Missouri was especially challenging for naval architects and engineers because the ship required considerable analysis, planning and specialization.

Additionally, the materials needed to plan the docking were 60 years old and needed revision in the preparation phase. Technological advances in docking had to be reworked into the planning. Yet another challenge workers overcame was the large number of blocks (300-plus for Missouri versus 86 blocks for the guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal) and their precise configuration, which required one-inch placement accuracy as the blocks were set.

The docking also was the first time journey-workers used a laser range finder tool to help position the ship’s bow on the centerline of the keel blocks, according to Shipwright Debbie Aguiar, who has 30 years of experience docking ships at Pearl Harbor.

Aguiar further explained her pride as well as the technical success. “When I stepped on her teak decks, I couldn’t help but feel the history beneath my feet,” she said. “We all have sentimental connections to objects in our lives. This is the feeling I get when looking around this battleship.”