Government Ships 3

Appropriately I haven’t used this title in a year;  “government ships” entitled the post a year ago when I was in town for the grand entrance for Fleet Week 2008.  I’m indebted to the vigilant bowsprite for catching the recessional . . . the fleet processing out the sixth boro for watery parts not yet revealed.  Intended or not, schooner Pioneer certainly had an up-close-and-personal here with DDG-80 Roosevelt.  That’s Ellis Island, in one of its many moods, in the background.

Bowsprite also recorded Iwo Jima‘s exit past the Morris Canal.

Here Roosevelt received visitors for a week at the Manhattan passenger terminal.

Given my recent post on the gunnery to be carried aboard Onrust, whose maiden voyage to the sixth boro will happen next week, I made it a point to find out about DDG-80‘s Mark 45 inside the red circle below.

Bow view of LHD-7 Iwo Jima.  Note the lone sailor on duty at bow just to port of the mast; he was from Texas and thrilled by the New York welcome he got.   The surprises for me waited inside the “well” or well deck:

a landing craft with twin Kort nozzles (as well as some barnacles on the hull) and

(what’s this . . . an 11′ diameter propeller . . .

another 11′ diamter propeller ??)  Aha!  it’s the starboard and port propulsion fan of one  LCAC . . . with

some jacuzzi jet drive vehicle on its back.  I wish now I’d gone onto this small patrol craft, because it’s bringing to mind a children’s song about a hole in the bottom of the sea…  like    “there’s a inflatable on a patrol craft on the LCAC in the well deck of the LHD in the harbor . . . of the island at the center of the world . . .”   (Good luck trying to set that to music!)

But here’s the biggest surprise for me:  a sign that I believed carried some security code:  #NYCFW.  Wrong . . . this is twitter speak!!!!  The secret tweeting world I’ve avoided was staring me right in the face.

Many thanks to Jed and technosavvy Elizabeth for information used here.

Fotos 1 and 2 by bowsprite;  all other by Will Van Dorp.