Philly shipyard hopes battleship mostly in good condition, but ready if not

PHILADELPHIA — "Small" is an adjective rarely used with the Battleship New Jersey, but its upcoming stop for dry dock maintenance here is one of those times.

The BB-62 deal rates as a “small” contract for Philadelphia Ship Repair, a company that leases the dry dock at The Navy Yard and largely uses it for military vessels.

Donna Connors, the firm's chief operating officer, says the 45,000-ton (unloaded) New Jersey is notable for the weight of its armor and the sharp taper to its bow but still is “pretty average” for a battleship.

Connors said the work crew might have 40 to 50 people when the New Jersey arrives.

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“Because there’s a lot of line handling, a lot of services, a lot of stuff that needs to be done,” Connors said. “And then, we’ll probably dip down into the mid-20 area or so and spike up towards the end when we have to undock her.”

Battleship New Jersey has a dry dock history

The New Jersey last was in a dry dock in 1991 when the Navy decommissioned her in California. Work was done on the ship in 1999 at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to make her usable as a museum.

"We were not dry docked during our 1999 yard period," battleship curator Ryan Szimanski said of the Battleship New Jersey Museum amd Memorial.

"The last time we were out of the water was during our deactivation work" at Long Beach, California, in 1990.

The New Jersey is not the biggest vessel the Philadelphia yard has handled. And its hull shape is not especially challenging in terms of designing and cutting the supporting cement and wood blocks it will rest on during repairs.

“Up in Boston, right now, we’re dry docking a … catamaran-type vessel,” Connors said. “So, we actually have two keel tracks and those have significant shape to them. It changes each block. That one’s a much more detailed build than what the battleship is.”

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The battleship is scheduled for a two-month stay, with repairs expected to cost less than $10 million. The work will be almost entirely external and directed at the underwater portion of the hull. Work below decks will be to systems linked to the hull.

Connors said the basic requirement is getting the battleship into Dry Dock 3, which then is drained of roughly 6 million gallons of water. New Jersey will come to rest on a very specific arrangement of supporting concrete and wood blocks, exposed to a range of visual and mechanical inspections.

Long-submerged secrets being exposed

“We look at all the underwater hull apertures or pieces and parts,” Connors said. “The propellers, the rudders, the skeg. Various areas you typically don’t see when it’s in the water.”

The “skeg,” for example, runs along the bottom of the vessel. It is a tapering or projecting stern section of keel protecting the propellers and supporting the rudders.

The New Jersey, like other vessels, incorporates hull openings to allow water to come in and leave in support of different systems. “Blanks,” or bolt-on covers, are used to seal those openings.

New Jersey got an estimated 132 blanks installed at the 1991 decommissioning, and the museum has said at least one has failed. Pressurized air is shot in to determine whether a blank is holding.

“In addition to that, we’ll be painting the underwater hull to ensure that the hull maintains a good paint job for the next 20 years until she dry docks again,” Connors said.

Connors said the testing of the blanks will happen at the same time as the painting. “The paint is the critical path of the project and will take the longest to complete,” she said.

Getting the maintenance done now is important to avoid more expensive repairs in the future, said Jack Willard, a spokesman for the battleship museum.

“Again, we’re very fortunate we’re in the Delaware where it’s not saltwater,” Willard said. “So, that’s helped things. The ship is in good shape, as far as we know. We’ll obviously learn more at dry dock.”

The shipyard also will do something known as “fleeting,” an old term for ensuring the hull paint job is as thorough as possible.

“Obviously, where the ship sets down on these blocks, you can’t paint,” Connors said. “Right? So, when we’re done painting the entire underwater, and it dries, we’re going to refloat the vessel, shift her back a bit, and reset her down so the spaces that were covered by the blocks are now in-between the blocks. And we’re going to paint them, too.”

A thick, thorough paint job is critical to prevent corrosion and fend off sea life seeking to attack to the hull.

Additionally, New Jersey has about 1,304 zinc anodes bolted on its underwater hull as protection against corrosion.

“When it’s underwater, the water and the biological and the fish and all those microorganisms attack the anodes before the steel because it’s easier for them to eat those away,” Connors said. “And we are changing them out to aluminum anodes for them.”

The dry dock stay also will expose the extent of erosion for the ship's hull plating.

Connors consider it “very likely” some plates will need replacing. “But again, it depends on the paint system and how long the paint system held, if the anodes were working properly,” she said.

“On an older ship like this, what they call the `wind and the water strike’ is the most susceptible,” Connors said. “And that’s because it’s not 100-percent under water and it’s not 100-percent dry."

Those conditions can cause "pitting," or weak spots.

They will be assessed using an ultrasonic testing, or UT gauging, machine on random spots over the hull. About 5,000 ultrasonic “shots” are expected to be done.

“And then, if we find an area that is a little susceptible?” Connors said. “We’ll do more shots in that area.”

Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.

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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: New Jersey river berth a plus, but decades in water pose questions