Intrepid Removed from Water
New York, NY —
The USS Intrepid leaves the water today for its full-body makeover. The aircraft carrier-turned-museum will be placed in dry dock, where it will be perched on 212 custom-made pine blocks while crews scrape and power-wash its salt- and weather-corroded keel, then paint it the traditional battleship gray.
It took complex engineering just to have the blocks mimic each dent and scar in the keel from years of wartime service, including repeated Japanese kamikaze and torpedo attacks. Later today, tugboats will pull the 41,000 ton Intrepid into the dry dock - a concrete bathtub-like encasement about the size of 3 football fields.
The rear door will be shut and sealed and the water will be pumped out. That process that could take up to 24 hours to complete. The Intrepid's 4 solid bronze propellers will be removed. One of them will be displayed in front of the Intrepid Museum, when it returns in October 2008.
