The most decorated battleship in Navy history, the Battleship New Jersey, will be dry docked for the first time in over thirty years.
In a press release, Jack Willard, Director of Marketing and Sales, announced the Battleship New Jersey is set to receive $5 million to dry dock the ship from the New Jersey Historical Commission under the FY2024 Appropriations Act that was signed into law by Governor Murphy in June.
According to Willard, the Navy’s guidelines for maintaining inactive warships calls for inactive ships to be dry docked for underwater hull maintenance once every 20 years. The last time the Battleship New Jersey was out of the water for maintenance was over 30 years ago in 1991. The Battleship will leave the Camden Waterfront and be towed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard’s Dry Dock Number 3. It will remain there for a period between 60-100 days and then return to Camden.
During maintenance, the hull will be cleaned and repainted to prevent corrosion, repair corrosion to the 132 “blanks” the Navy “welded over the ship’s through-hull openings,” and “replace more than 1,304 anodes that make up a critical part of the ship’s cathodic protection system to prevent the dissimilar metals that make up the ship’s hull from wasting away.”
Not only is the USS New Jersey the most decorated battleship in Navy history, but it also serves as one of the Tri-state area’s greatest tourist attractions. The Battleship earned distinction in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and conflicts in the Middle East. Its history spans over half of the 20th century. Today, the Battleship New Jersey serves as a living museum and memorial on the Camden Waterfront.
The Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial are in the process of securing the remaining funds for dry docking. For more information, click here. For information about programs and events at the Battleship, visit www.battleshipnewjersey.org.