How Many Tugs Does It Take To Move A Battleship?

this video is sponsored by World of Warships in early 1950 USS Missouri America's only Battleship at the time found herself high and dry on a sand Bank outside Norfolk Naval Base it took the combined efforts of the Army and Navy over two weeks to set her free using an ingenious combination of tugs anchors and Engineering expertise but what really happened how did the country's only Battleship get herself into such a predicament USS Missouri is an Iowa-class Battleship with a length of 270 meters and a displacement just under 60 000 tons completed in 1944 she participated in the latter stages of the second world war even hosting the signing of the Japanese instrument to surrender in late 1945 after the war she remained in active service surviving the mothballing that occurred to most battleships as aircraft carriers quickly rendered them obsolete of course battleships and the USS Missouri in particular are by no means obsolete when it comes to this video's sponsor World of Warships World of War ships is a free-to-play game available for PC I say game but you might even describe it as a bit of a floating digital Museum displaying breathtaking Recreations of not only the most fearsome vessels of the first and second world wars but also many Blueprints and designs of ships that never saw battle new content is released every month whether it's new ships in-game Nations Cosmetics or even ship classes you can always count on enjoying fresh gameplay experiences in World of Warships stunning 12x12 Arenas there are more than 40 unique maps with Dynamic weather all of which have been updated with stunning new water effects and textures making the game sees virtually indistinguishable from the real deal conquer the oceans with any one of the multiple ship classes on offer big hitting battleships like the USS Missouri quick and devastating destroyers all-round Cruisers sneaky submarines and if the skies are your thing aircraft carriers oh and did I mention that is also available on Console jump aboard yourself and download World of Warship using the first link in the description during registration use the code warships to get exclusive Awards including a bunch of doubloons credits premium account Diamond a free ship after you complete 15 battles anyway towards the end of the 1940s USS Missouri found that she was the only U.S battleship left in commission and was sent for a three-month overhaul in Norfolk Naval Shipyard while there her new master Captain William D Brown took command he was a distinguished officer seemingly destined for the top but needing some big ship experience to help him on his way unfortunately his command style was more of a disciplinarian rather than promoting an open atmosphere on his first run on Missouri his executive officer had offered some input into a navigational question but was later reprimanded by Brown making clear that he wanted his crew to know their place anyway with the trial run out of the way Missouri's following deployment was to Cuba for exercises she departed ps7 at Norfolk Navy yard and headed out through Hampton Roads towards Chesapeake Bay in the open ocean she passed between Fort wool and Old Point Comfort without incident and then prepared to run the acoustic range on her way into the bay essentially the Navy had a series of underwater cables that they were using to map the acoustic signature of different vessels so they asked passing ships if they'd be happy to take part they'd ask Missouri if she could run the range on her way out so Captain Brown passed it onto his operations officer to make it happen he in turn passed it on to another officer who couldn't make much sense of it as the charted information was unclear the chart showed five boys marking the range but three of the boys were removed in the days prior so no one really knew what to expect the thing is apart from the captain and the two officers in question no one else knew that Missouri was going to be running the range so it came as a complete surprise when Captain Brown asked the other officers on the bridge to look out for the acoustic boys needless to say given the captain's personality they were ordered off the bridge to go and get themselves informed back on the bridge another officer believed he'd spotted the acoustic boy so he reported to Captain Brown and Missouri headed straight towards them unfortunately the markers in question were actually Spa boy is on a small Channel used by fishing vessels with nowhere near enough water for a fully laden Battleship as Missouri continued on a track more and more of the crew started to realize something was wrong some of them alerted the captain but were ignored While others like the radar operators assumed their equipment must be malfunctioning it was only when visual reports from the aftwatchman came in saying the propellers were churning Up Mud that the captain finally realized something was very wrong within seconds Missouri was riding up onto the sandbank her momentum carrying her hundreds of meters onto the Shoal by the time he ordered Williston on the engines it was too late the engineers had already shut down the propulsion due to sand Ingress into the water cooling system Missouri was hard to ground with Insight of some of the Navy's most senior officers accommodation in Naval Station Norfolk as well as their army equivalents stationed at Fort Monroe on the plus side though it also meant that she was close to a lot of resources that could be bought into Play Over the coming weeks in an attempt to set her free the problem was that she'd run aground on one of the highest tides of the normal cycle meaning there'll be another two weeks before it would get back to that same height again not only that but her immense size and speed meant that she carried so much momentum that she drove herself high up onto the sand dropping her waterline so much that she had effectively lost over 10 000 tons of buoyancy they immediately knew that no tug would ever be able to pull her free so the only option was a combination of lightering and increasing buoyancy essentially they called in a tanker to offload as much fuel and water as possible as well as barges to take off things like ammunitions stores and Personnel to increase their buoyancy they called in Army support to dredge around the ship and let us sit lower in the water they also attached pontoons under the hull increasing her underwater displacement almost two weeks later on the 31st of January they were ready to attempt to break her free as Missouri's engines were inoperable the required power was supplied by 13 of the Navy's largest tux complemented by nine sets of beaching gear beaching gear is essentially just a giant anchor attached to a powerful winch back on board Missouri each set capable of applying even more Force than the largest tugs but pretty useless once the ship starts moving anyway the tugs were arranged with all the biggest ones to provide as much pulling Force as possible with some of the smaller ones at the bow to push from side to side twisting the ship but it didn't work although all the calculations said that it should Missouri just didn't move they realized there must be something else holding her in position with the benefit of hindsight we actually know that she'd impaled herself on an old anchor easily explaining why this first attempt didn't work anyway with the tidal window closing they offloaded even more weight and rearranged the tugs for one final push this time three of the large tugs will move to assist with the twisting with the rest continuing to work with the ground anchors to provide that a Stern power the twisting tugs powered up pulling the belt to starboard while a winch is heaved on the port anchors slowly Missouri's massive battle turned to starboard it was working they then repositioned the twisting tugs on the port bound heaved on the starboard anchors turning her to Port much quicker than that initial turn to starboard she was finally free with the tug's assistance Missouri was maneuvered back to Norfolk and into dry dock for a repair as well the investigation continued to try and work out how such a simple mistake could happen in the end the inquiry found that it all boiled down to one thing human error it was the captain's error in navigation but that error should have been picked up by the team unfortunately the atmosphere on board was such that the crew were afraid to speak up and when they did their concerns were ignored even now over 70 years later we still encounter this same issue at Sea the master is in command but a major part of that is establishing the correct atmosphere on board so that the entire team can function effectively together again a massive thanks to this video's sponsor World of Warships download now using the first link in the description and remember to use the code warships to get a bunch of exclusive Rewards

Channel: Casual Navigation

Views: 225,094

Keywords: casual navigator, marine, shipping, casual navigation, maritime explaination, merchant navy, sailing, marine animation, USS Missouri, uss missouri grounding

Id: iGsawo5Yczo

Length: 7min 58sec (478 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 18 2023