USS Midway
The USS Midway was commissioned in 1945 and accrued an
impressive history during her time.
She was
decommissioned in 1992 and opened as a museum in 2004 with more than a million
visitors each year.
Not often does
one get to go on an aircraft carrier so we figured we’d spend an hour or 2.
They kicked us off at closing time many
hours later.
I know you’re all
dying to hear all about her.
This
is one hell-of-a boat or more correctly ship, only submarines are called boats.
She's 1001 feet long, 258 feet at the beam and has a 4 acre flight deck.
OK all you boat owners, tab up those
dockage fees.
Don’t want to pay
dockage just drop a couple of 20-ton anchors, who’s going to tell you
different?
I don’t think I could
lift one link of the chain. Packed in are a crew of 4,500 including 5
physicians and 3 dentists.
Feeding
this hoard requires 225 cooks who delicately prepare 10 tons of food each day.
But does that include the grog? And, for the motor-heads out there:
under the hood she’s got 12 boilers that generate 212,000 horse power.
Oh but the fuel economy: 260 gallons
per mile or 100,000 gallons a day.
Let’s just hop on over to the south Pacific.
“Fill her up sir?”
Why sure, that’ll be 3.4 million gallons.
Since that’s only a month's supply send on tankers to follow
us.
This tour was awesome with
many an eye opener.
We’ve seen at
least 3 other active carriers in port.
The USS Reagan slipped in last week when we weren’t looking. The new ones have "solved" the fuel economy with a pair of nuclear reactors each.
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| Midway's flight deck included samples of many aircraft used throughout it's long history. |
Pacific Fleet
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| Assorted frigates and other ships of the Pacific Fleet with the Coronado bridge & San Diego in background. |
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| We witnessed several sub arrivals & departures. This one from Point Loma. |
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| This sculpture honors many a welcome home or departure to an uncharted future for sailors of the Pacific Fleet. |
The Maritime Museum
I wasn’t big on it but Nancy insisted (because she wanted to see the HMS Surprise) on visiting the
Maritime Museum along the embarcadero.
Score one for Nancy: what we thought would only take an hour or 2 took most
of an enjoyable day. The museum
included a number of ships & boats to explore, each containing models and a
plethora of well presented historical information.
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| Star of India (1863) 212-feet long, 280 feet with spar. |
She was launched in November 1863 in England I presume and is the world's oldest active merchant ship. Her first voyages took her to India for cotton, unavailable from the US due to the Civil War. She soon turned to transporting emigrants from England to New Zealand. Other stories followed and she is one of the few remaining ships from the "Age of Sail". Meandering above and below decks provided some feeling of what life aboard was about. Very spartan when compared to todays vessels but almost luxurious when compared to the HMS Surprise that I'll get to next.
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| HMS Surprise (replica of 1700's British frigate), 179-feet overall. |
She spent the first 30 years as a training tall ship on the east coast. She was later purchased by 20th Century Fox, modified, and became the HMS Surprise for the movie "Master and Commander". Moving above & below decks it's just about impossible to imagine the hardships faced by these sailors as they traveled to the far reaches of the oceans. Cramming well over 100 men, necessary for manning and fighting, into a ship of this size would be hardship enough. Throw in stretches of doldrums, typhoons, freezing cold, scorching heat, short rations, and all to find other lunatics so that you could fire canon balls at each other at point-blank range. None of this apparently bothered them more than running short of grog, now mates we have a problem.
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| "OK Nance, prepare for sail" |
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| "Yeah, I'll get right on that" |
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| Here lies the Captain's cabin, the only space that might be called spacious. Captain's of this era were more like gods or at least kings aboard their ship. Can't you Patrick O'Brian fans just vision Aubrey & Maturin sawing away on their violin & cello behind these ports. |
Next came a Soviet submarine. B-39 is a diesel-electric Soviet attack submarine. Clancy readers will recognize this as a "Foxtrot" class from many of his novels. During the Cold War this one may have actually stalked several of the Pacific Fleets nuclear subs, that today share SD harbor. This boat is just shy of 300 feet and held a crew of 78. I knew that submarine life was cramped but going below made it seem unbelievable. Not for me, fortunately. Modern nuclear subs are probably less cramped & spartan as I don't think the Soviets were known for their creature comforts.
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| Soviet (1974) Foxtrot class attack sub of the Cold War era. |
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| Soviet sub |
Another sub, the 165-foot USS Dolphin, was used primarily as a research vessel. In 1968, the year she was launched, she set an operating submarine record depth that still holds today. It's still "classified" but her listed operating depth is 3000+ feet. She was decommissioned in 2007 and claims many other "firsts" in her legacy.
We took more photos of other ships but they have somehow disappeared into the digital atmosphere. I'm tiring of this page myself anyway so I'll sum it up. There were a couple of "America's Cup" sailboats and a beautiful old steam/sail "hunting yacht". Apparently in 1904 it was easier or at least one could with greater luxury move about Scotland's hunting spots using a 134-foot yacht than by land. There was also a grand 279-foot steam ferry boat built in 1898. With her Victorian elegance, the Berkeley was the first steel hulled, double-ended ferryboat to ply San Francisco Bay. One event of note was when she helped evacuate a burning San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake. Today she houses loads of historical displays, naval, tuna fishing, commercial...
