Last night witnessed the launch of the USNS WILLIAM MCLEAN (T-AKE 12) at NASSCO shipyard here in San Diego.
In this particular video, you get a good look at the removal of one of the spur shores which are the last things holding the ship from sliding down the ways and into San Diego Harbor. The franticness of removing the 12"x12" shores, air-arcing off the steel clip that is welded to the bottom of the ship, grinding down the remnant steel and slapping some anti-foulant paint on the bare steel mere minutes before the ship starts down the ways, makes this evolution our favorite part of the whole launch process.
We've been fortunate enough to participate in 15 such launches over the years and though we've also been fortunate that in each one, the ship all moves in the same direction and about the same speed and without any (except once) negative consequences, the whole experience never gets old.
Fair winds and following seas to the Billy Mac!
(Did you catch us? We make a couple of cameos)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Video clip of the day
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I got caught up in family business and was late to do the "meet-n-greet" @ the Atlas Shrugged viewing. So rather than let a drive to downtown go to waste, we decided to try and find the launching...easier than we thought since a huge ship lit up with balloons and banners sort of "pops" along the dark waterfront. Kids LOVED it...especially since it included fireworks. It's a thing of beauty to see something enormous and powerful rush into the sea. Of course they should have been playing video of the work you guys were doing instead of having suits give speeches about ailing American infrastructure.
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