Day 12 - Friday, December 14th - USS Lexington

 Walking through the USS Lexington wore me out 😀 yesterday so I didn't do this post last night.

Friday was cloudy and windy with a high of 73 degrees. At times it misted rain and a few times sun peeked through the clouds.

We had lunch at the Angry Marlin, just down the street from the campground. Portions were generous. The blue corn onion rings were great. I have no idea what the spicy (not to hot) white sauce was, but it was good for dipping the onion rings. By the time I took the photo we had already eaten half of them. Kathy had a fish taco and I had a Cuban sandwich. She said hers was OK, mine was slightly better than OK.

There was still evidence of the hard rain 20 hours after it stopped. Water still blocked over half of the left lane of the northbound side of the highway.

Then it was on to tour the USS Lexington. A half hour drive from the campground.

We knew that there was going to be a LOT of walking and using ships ladders during the tour. Kathy was going to drop me off, go do some grocery shopping and then probably just wait until I was done. We found that getting in and out of the area was a chore because of MAJOR road and bridge construction in the area of the Lexington. Kathy found a nice parking spot overlooking the bay and decided to stay in the car and read. She did manage to get in a walk along the beach during one of the times when the sun was out.

The Lexington's keel was laid on July 15, 1941, she was launched September 26, 1942 and was commissioned on February 17, 1943. 14 months to build her and 19 months to get her active at sea. It is almost impossible to believe that at one time the federal government could actually get a project done without millions of hours of bureaucratic nonsense. 

She was expanded in 1955 and again in 1991. Below are some statistics. If there are multiple numbers they are for changes made during the rebuilds.

Length 872'/895'/910'

Length at waterline 820'

Width (extreme) 148'/167'

Beam at waterline 93'/103'

Height (flight deck to waterline) 52'

Draft (hull below water) 28'/30'

Full load tons 36,380/42,000

Boilers & Engines - 8 Babcock & Wilcox boilers & 4 Westinghouse steam turbines

Speed 30 knots/33 knots

4 shafts, 16' propellers

Fuel capacity 1.67 million gallons/1.5 million gallons

Flight deck 862'x108'/910'x142'

Elevator lift capacity 28,000#/57,000#

Catapults 1-H4B hydraulic/2-C11 steam

Aviation fuel capacity 231,650 gallons/400,000 gallons

Officers 268(incl Air Group)/75(no Air Group)

Enlisted 2,363/1,368

Is everyone bored yet? There are 5 color coded, self-guided tour routes. At different spots along the tours there are QR Symbols, you can use the camera on your phone to get the URL for more information about the area you are in.

The barrel shaped objects under the guns at the left are some of the 15 man life rafts. If the abandon ship order is given they are released with a button, or if the system fails they are manually cut loose. They are on a 100' tether. Once they are 100' from the ship the tether pulls a pin and the rafts inflate. Should the ship sink before they are released they are designed to release automatically once they are 15' below the surface. They  float to the surface and once the ship sinks to 100' below the surface the tether pulls the pin to inflate the rafts. Each raft contained supplies to sustain 15 men for 5 days (if I remember correctly).

Flight deck. There is a lot of areas where maintenance work is underway.

There were far to many interesting things inside the ship for photographs. But the bunks weren't for the claustrophobic. The ones on the tour were for the women but the ones for men were supposed to be similar. The bottom bunk is lifted up to reveal the storage area under the mattress.

I don't remember how the lockers were allocated. There were not as many at there were bunks.

During one of the rebuilds (I think the 1991) and escalator was added so that the pilots didn't have to climb 3 levels of ships ladders, while loaded with flight gear, to get to the flight deck. It only went up. It is not inservice but is used now used for tourists to have an easy way to go back down, after they have climbed ships ladders to go up during the tour.

When I was going down the escalator I wondered how they cut such a long slot through multiple decks without weakening the ships structure. Once outside I noticed the bump out below the flight deck and wonder if it is the added escalator.

Many years ago I toured the battleship the USS Alabama in Mobile. I was worn out by the time I finished. I was a little concerned that I wouldn't make it all the way through the Lexington. I managed all the tours. I think a person could easily spend 4-6 hours on the ship without getting bored. Information posted by the Captain's cabin, on the bridge, noted that he basically was on call 24/7. Basically he was virtually never to leave the bridge. Meals were brought up to him. His 1.5 room cabin contained a small bathroom.

Actually, now that I am going through some of the information I realize that I somehow missed most of the Fos'cle Tour, bummer.

I'll get this posted and will post more on the road and new bridge construction later, maybe on another of my blogs.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours as He has me.