Winches

There was quite a variety of odds and ends scattered around the ship. The snaking winches and topping winches are just two of five winches on the ship. The burtoning winch, large boat winches and whaleboat winch are on my list of things to do.

Antennas

The ship was an antenna farm. The AN/SMQ-6 weather satellite antenna (with the two helical elements) was on top of the pilot house. The ship received satellite data several times a day.* The large AN/SRA-57 discone (or discage) antenna was located on the bow, away from potential sources of disturbance on the ship. The crew referred to the cylindrical stowage compartment at the base as the "beer can."

Propellers and Propeller Struts

The propellers were an interesting modeling project. They were "proportional pitch" propellers with the angle of the blade (relative to the centerline of rotation) changing with the radius from the center to achieve relatively evenly distributed forces on the blades. The farther out from the center the greater the rate of motion through the water. Close to the center of rotation where the blade is narrow it is angled sharply to the direction of rotation to achieve greater force on the water. Farther out the angle of attack is much less where the blade is widest. I started with the original blueprints and built up the blade through several iterations to get the correct proportional pitch.

The propellers were eleven feet ten inches in diameter and weighed 14,930 pounds each. The ship actually had four different propellers. The starboard propellers had right hand pitch (turned clockwise for forward motion) and the port side props had left hand (counterclockwise) pitch. The inboard ("A") and outboard ("B") propellers were slightly different designs to produce equal thrust from each propeller. They had the same diameter but the blades were about 1% wider (perpendicular to the axis of the blade) on the outboard "B" props. These were higher in the water (slightly lower water density) and the wider blades increased thrust to compensate. The inboard propellers were deeper in the water (greater water density) so slightly smaller blades were used.

The propeller shafts passed through shaft tubes in the hull and were then supported by two struts under the hull. The after struts were massive single steel castings with a tube 2 1/2 feet in diameter almost 7 feet long, with legs 10 to 12 feet long. The forward struts had similar tubes and one short leg. After the struts were installed on the ship the tubes were bored in place to carry bearings for the shafts. The legs of the struts were machined to a low drag "airfoil" shape, with a slight twist from the hull to the strut tube. The twist was calculated to match the direction of water flow around the hull to minimize drag. Separate fairwaters fit around the shafts to streamline the ends of the strut tubes.

About 80 feet of shaft extended outside the hull. The shafts were assembled in sections that were bolted together with flanges at the ends. The sections could be separated and removed from the ship for repairs. All four shafts had sections about 50 feet in length between the forward and aft struts with joints inside the fairwaters at the forward end of the forward strut. The inboard shaft had another long section forward of the first with a flange inside the ship just ahead of where the shaft tube penetrated the hull. The outboard shaft had a shorter second section with the flange joint outside the hull in the shaft tube aft of where the shaft penetrated the hull. The shaft tube openings were covered with portable plates that served as fairwaters. The inboard plate was a simple plate that fit flat over the opening. The outboard portable plate had raised conical sections that fit around the shaft coupling.

Odds and Ends

The saluting gun was used for ceremonial occasions. It fired a 37mm blank cartridge. The wildcats were the mechanism used to raise and lower the anchors. They were essentially large chain sprockets. The anchor weighed 13,000 pounds, was six and one half feet wide and over eight feet tall.