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Total Run This Leg:
2,542.1
Nautical Miles
Total Average Speed: 5.17 Knots
Hours / Days This Leg: 491.5 Hours, 20.48 Days
Distance To Go This Leg: 405.7 Nautical Miles
Estimated Time Of Arrival: 7:00 a.m., Saturday, October 16, Balboa Sea
Buoy, Panama
Present Course: 117 Degrees Southeasterly
Winds: West-Southwest at 18 Knots
Seas: 3 Feet
Swells: 8 Feet from the Southwest
Barometric Pressure: 1011 Millibars
Air Temperature: 76 Degrees
Sea Temperature: 79 Degrees
Visibility: 10 Miles
Skies: Showers
Sea Floor: Ocean depths in these sparsely chartered waters range from
1,987 to 2,478 Fathoms, or from 11,922 to 14,868 Feet. Position:
USS New Jersey is now 46 Miles
Southwest of Isla del Cano, Costa Rica, which lies due West of the Peninsula de Osa,
forming the lower edge of the Bahia de Coronado on the Costa Rican Pacific coastline.
Beyond these coastal points, running through the mid-section of the country, are
the Cordillera de Talamanca, eventually crossing the boundary between Costa Rica and
Panama.
USS New Jersey's 1967-68 Modernization - $21.5 Million
The USS New Jersey had been mothballed at Bayonne since
August, 1957, when ten years later, she was called up again to serve the forces in
Vietnam. The Battleship's general activation orders would require $21,500,000, ten
months at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and a work crew upwards of 2,000 yardmen to
perform the make-over.
The orders included the following:
1. General Activation Order
Activate - 16-inch guns, 5-inch guns and equipment; all
deck equipment berthing, messing, office, work spaces, main propulsion system and
auxiliary machinery.
Do Not Activate - Flag offices, 40mm magazines, some
storerooms, some unused staterooms in flag area.
Remove - 16 quad 40mm - total 64 guns; (the 60 20mm guns
were removed previously).
Update - Fire control and ordnance systems.
2. Modernization
New gun fire control computers and target designation
system.
New communications equipment.
New detection and navigational radars.
Helicopter landing area and facilities.
Medical and Dental - all new equipment, new operating
room facilities, three new dental chair units.
To Improve Habitability:
Air-condition all living and messing spaces
Tile decks
New fluorescent lighting
Four-man tables on mess deck
Individual reading lamps over each bunk
Three inch foam-rubber mattress on each bunk
Bunks in tiers of three instead of four (In most areas)
3. Manpower and Time
In the ten months at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, a
crew of up to 2,000 yard workmen involved with ship. Drydocked for three months to
accomplish all necessary hull work, painting, removal of outlet seals, work on underwater
equipment such as propellers and rudders.
4. Cost - $21,500,000.00
Then, on April 6, 1968, the new, and only Battleship
operating in the world at the time, USS New Jersey was recommissioned, and her new
Commanding Officer, Captain J. Edward Snyder assumed control, prepared to take her
firepower to Southeast Asia at the height of the Vietnam War.
Submitted by Bob Wernet onboard the Sea Victory.
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