US Navy WW II Floating Dry Docks

[Ray Newman]

"The docks came in two sizes, with the largest ones built out of ten sections, each 256′ long and 80′ wide and with a lift of 10,000 tons. These were welded together side to side to produce an assembled dock 927′ long and 256′ wide that could lift a warship 827′ long, 133′ wide, and displacing up to 90,000 tons. This was sufficient for any ship in the fleet. The smaller version came in seven sections, each 204′ long and 101′ wide and capable of lifting 8000 tons." (emphasis added: RCN)

Read all 'bout it:

https://givemeliberty01.com/tag/advance ... nal-docks/

[Ben_Rumson]

Thanks Ray! I love things like this.

[Grizz]

ditto on the link.

the entire service fleet is totally neglected in most literature, and without that fleet the combatants would be one and done wonders.


that video at the end is remarkable. it looks like the camers were being towed on a wire, clear of the aircraft. and it looked to me like one of the camera planes was a biplane. anyone catch that?

[Griff]

Neat story and excellent video on putting the battleship in it.

[Sixgun]

That stuff is incredible! Just imagine the thinking that went in to all of that..---Thanks!---6

[TraderVic]

Interesting. During my second tour my destroyer went into a floating dry dock in Subic Bay ( Philippines ). First tour, my first destroyer went into a "fixed" dry dock in Sasebo, Japan.

The article stated that sometimes ammunition and fuel were offloaded to gain more lift on the floating dry docks. At least by the time we went into dry dock in the early 70's, it was standard safety procedure to do so and that was a lot of work - to manually empty the magazines of all ordinance.

Ships are more likely to catch fire in dry dock, so all fuel and explosives are removed. Damage control drills ALL of the time, night and day.

We all hated dry dock.

[M. M. Wright]

Thanks Ray, I watched the video through a couple of times, backing up to catch interesting things again.

Those films were all shot in Technicolor. Gun cameras too.

Griff, I thought most of the footage was probably from a PBY, but you're right, some of it from a towed camera.

[jeepnik]

As an Airedale the only ship, though it was probably, technically, a boat was the fire boat at Eglin AFB. I did a few weeks on it in the mid 70's for training.

However, one of my first jobs when I left the air force was working at Bethlehem Shipyard in L.A. Harbor. They had two floating dry docks. While no where near as large as these, I found them fascinating. A ship being lifted completely out of the water is a sight to see.

The prep work to build the blocks so they would conform to the ships hull is a study in precision. Then the dock is sunk and the ship is brought in over the blocks and tied to the dock. As the water is pumped out of the dock to refloat it its position is watched by very experienced folks using tranists. The ship is pulled forward, back and side to side so that when the blocks and hull meet they are exactly where they should be.

As they continue to lift the ship extreme care is taken to make sure the dock comes up level so the ship doesn't list and quite literally fall over. This takes hours and a lot of experienced people to do correctly.

Lowering the dock back down takes almost as much precision. As the ship begins to float, the lines have to be adjusted to keep it centered in the dock. And every thing has to move in a manner that keeps things plumb.