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HarleyDiver:Planning a safe rec multilevel dive is going to be harder than you think.
Sounds easy, drop to the flight deck & then work you way up the island. Right?
How many of the mooring lines are going to be attached to the TOP of the superstrucre?
What if your boat is up-current on a ball tied to the flight deck (at 130')?
This is a serious dive, and needs to be respected.
The dimensions of an aircraft carrier are a bit differnet than a regular ship. Her beam is 121 feet just at the waterline - the flight deck is over 200' wide. If this ship were to end up on her side she'd be shallower than if on her bottom - indeed, she may even break the surface.AquaHump:Very well put. You can't be sure where you will tie in, that given; you should make sure that you have enough training to do the dive. All this is up in the air. This thing could end up on her side for all we know making it a trimix only dive.
The Island alone is over 130 feet long, and about 80 feet from the flight deck to the top, making it plenty big as its own dive.HarleyDiver:Planning a safe rec multilevel dive is going to be harder than you think.
Sounds easy, drop to the flight deck & then work you way up the island. Right?
How many of the mooring lines are going to be attached to the TOP of the superstrucre?
What if your boat is up-current on a ball tied to the flight deck (at 130')?
This is a serious dive, and needs to be respected.
Just below the flight deck is the "gallery deck" or the "O2 level," occupied by catapult and arresting gear machinery spaces, several squadron ready rooms, berthing areas and other assorted offices and spaces. It is a maze of rooms, passages and dead ends. Extremely tricky and dangerous. I have years living on carriers and years diving caves and wrecks and I ain't about to go in the gallery deck without a full team and a complete tech plan.WetDawg:For tech divers going below 130' just -- the openings just under the flight deck is the hangar deck which is an open space big enough to store all the aircarft on board.
Rick Murchison:Just below the flight deck is the "gallery deck" or the "O2 level," occupied by catapult and arresting gear machinery spaces, several squadron ready rooms, berthing areas and other assorted offices and spaces. It is a maze of rooms, passages and dead ends. Extremely tricky and dangerous. I have years living on carriers and years diving caves and wrecks and I ain't about to go in the gallery deck without a full team and a complete tech plan.
The Hangar deck is below this. The hangar deck can hold a bit less than half the airplanes in the normal ship's compliment, the rest must stay on the roof (flight deck). I'm guessing the top of the hangar doors will be in the 140-150' depth range. The main deck (the floor of the hangar deck) should be in the 165-170 foot range, with another 50' to the keel in the sand at 218'. Looking at pictures it will be very tempting for OW divers to just dip down to the hangar for a peek - and even more tempting to "swim through" from one hangar door to the other. It is both deeper and a whole lot further than it looks, and extremely dangerous if you're not trained for it.
There's plenty of ship to dive above the flight deck.
It's a big boat.
Rick
Many. But I don't know that there is any complete set of the current configuration anywhere. The 'O' boat went through many mods, including the "27 Mod," where the angled deck was added, and the entire superstructure - that is everything above the hangar deck - underwent major modification and rearrangements. The main deck, O1 level and O2 level along the port side are particularly confusing, where there are spaces that require, for example, that you go up a ladder, through a hatch or two, down another ladder and through another hatch to get to the space, with no other way out or in.AquaHump:are there plans for this ship?
Nope. Spaces are lettered and numbered with a scheme that tells you where they are, and the space letter/number is painted on the bulkhead. And you can't be shy about asking an older hand how to get where you're wanting to go. But underwater those painted letters/numbers won't last long, so... extremely dangerous without the proper training and technique.AquaHump:I know that navagating her decks while she is afloat is a very hard thing to do. Don't they give crew a few monthe to get the lay out while they are living on board?