Yesterday we saw the transfer of a modern aircraft carrier to a dry dock for maintenance, but today we are going to see something much more unusual.
Today there are no longer active battleships in any naval force in the world. Of the nine surviving 20th century battleships, eight are in the US and one is in Japan (the "Mikasa"). They are all museum ships, and the Japanese is the only surviving pre-dreadnought battleship today.
The first battleship converted into a museum in the US was the USS Texas, launched in 1912 and assigned in 1914. With a length of 175 meters and equipped with 10 356 mm guns and 21 127 mm guns (a brutal firepower for its time), the USS Texas took part in both world wars, participating in naval bombardment in support of operations on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Landings in 1944. In 1948, the ship was decommissioned and converted into a museum in La Porte, Texas.
In 1988, on the 40th anniversary of her transformation into a floating museum, the USS Texas was sent to dry dock for a two-year maintenance period. In recent years there have been plans to definitively send her to a dry dock, due to the problems that she poses having such an old ship afloat, but at the moment the funds for it have not yet been secured.
Meanwhile, in 2019 the floating museum closed its doors to prepare it for a new passage through the dry dock and with an uncertain future due to the decrease in visitors, raising the possibility of sending it to another location where it can gain the attention of more people. On August 31, 2022, the Texas was towed to a dry dock at Gulf Copper Dry Dock & Rig Repair, in Galveston, Texas. Several cities have shown their interest in hosting this centenary ship once these repairs are completed.
On September 22, Third Coast Drone posted the video of the impressive transfer of the USS Texas to the dry dock, an operation that is not seen every day:
This afternoon, the same YouTube channel has published a new video showing how the repair work is going:
You can see some screenshots of the videos below. Here we see a moment of the transfer. The USS Texas was taken away by four tugboats, as the ship is no longer seaworthy under its own power.
Another image of the transfer, with the ship seen from starboard. Here we can appreciate the five large turrets that share its ten 356 mm guns.
The USS Texas in dry dock. Like the ship we saw yesterday, a floating dock is being used.
The bow of the battleship in the dry dock. This image allows us to observe the large size of the ship's hull.
An image of the stern of the battleship.
Maintenance work on the part of the hull located below the waterline, next to the rudder of the battleship.
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