Thursday, October 10, 2024

The motors powering that carrier are awesome! Just look at that wake!

 


15 comments:

  1. Look at the ball........he's high!

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    1. Nah, He's just getting set up for an over head, carrier break

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  2. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/USS_George_Washington_%28CVN-73%29_propeller.jpg/856px-USS_George_Washington_%28CVN-73%29_propeller.jpg

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  3. Surfing USA!!! or wake board at one of those Red Bull events

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  4. Max speed 30+ knots (cough)

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  5. The GW is powered by steam engines, same as Civil War ironclads. Any Union or Confederate engineman would have been familiar with the basic principles of operation.

    The GW's engines are turbines instead of reciprocating pistons. Turbines phased in slowly, beginning around the early 20th century, but steam went in one pipe and out another, just like Watt engines. The fuel-fired boiler is replaced by a nuclear reactor, but it's still just "the thing that heats the water into steam". Boiler operators were usually a separate trade from enginemen anyway.

    If you're an old steamship or steam railroad fan, the prime contractors in the nuclear industry will be familiar, like Babcock and Wilcox or General Electric. They're the backbone of the industry that actually make reactors and their support systems.

    --TRX

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  6. Back in the day I left SD about 3 hours after the Big E.
    Got to Subic via Guam and Okinawa.
    She showed up in a, to me, suspiciously fast time.
    I remember my rough card board box calculation showing about 48+ knots. Her course was unkown to me but distance plus some fudge....so...
    Only the nuke boats showed. The rest of the CBG got there 2 days later. I assume the attack boat was with her too.

    33kts...😆

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  7. Motors? It's an EV?

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  8. Nimitz-class carriers' gross tonnage when fully loaded is 100,000 and cruises in excess of 30 knots

    Icon of the Seas, the biggest cruise ship, has 248,663 gross tons, 3 diesel electric propulsion pods of 27,000 horsepower each and cruises at 22 knots. Top speed unknown.

    I did not know how huge cruise ships were til I googled it up after reading other comments here.

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  9. Spent 3 years on Big John, CV-67 Bird Farm working the engine rooms, 8 1200 PSI Superheated boilers, spinning steam turbines, turning 4 screws 21' in diameter. The wake she left was easily as high at the fan tail. Good Times

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  10. That wake is fairly small. If she were trying to make serious way, the "rooster tail" would be far, far higher.

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  11. I was working offshore Dubai when a carrier steamed out to sea.
    I saw it a couple miles away, gawked for a bit, then got back to work. A few minutes later, I went topside for something, and that ship was just gone.
    Those things are FAST.

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  12. Back in the day when I was a Coasty......my "Cutter" was leaving Key West headed for the Yucatan peninsula for Drug Interdictions patrol. A huge carrier was just off the Key West Sea buoy off-loading crew members for liberty. My ship just took a slow speed to Cuba and run down just off their territorial waters to show the flag!
    We could still track the Carrier off Key West and before the sun set, she was headed west at 50 knots by our radar! You could actually see the wake from the bow and stern by radar! She was out of visual range when the carrier wake caught up to us. The wake was at least 8 feet and our little 210 foot cutter bobbed like a cork! Carriers are Impressive......but when the Battleships where around they were the true BIG DOGS!

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