The Navy Built a Ship That Looks Like Noah's Ark

[diehardblue]

One of the most unusual “ships” in the U.S. Navy is headed from Mississippi to Japan. APL 67, a berthing barge, provides accommodations to sailors when their own warships are temporarily uninhabitable. The barge is unarmed, unpowered, and will probably never leave port.

The gray-white barge is 267 feet long and 68.7 feet wide, and rises about four stories above the water. The floating, largely featureless vessel, draws comparisons to Noah’s Ark. (The Ark, however, was notably bigger at 525 feet long by 87 feet wide.) Seapower says the ship can accommodate 74 officers and 537 enlisted personnel.

VT Halter Marine in Pascagoula, Mississippi built the unpowered barge, which is on its way to Naval Base San Diego and will eventually travel across the Pacific to Fleet Activity Yokosuka, home of the 7th Fleet.

Think of APL 67 like a floating hotel. Sailors will usually stay on the barge for short periods of time, while the ship they are normally assigned to is undergoing maintenance. If a ship goes into drydock at Yokosuka, the Navy doesn’t have to hunt down 300 hotel rooms for the crew. The barge could also be towed to a new location to provide living quarters.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/the-navy-built-a-ship-that-looks-like-noahs-ark/ar-AAMtG61?ocid=mailsignout&li=BBnb7Kz&pc=U591

[grumpyduck]

1. That looks like Noah's Ark?

I don't think so...

[Dial H For Hero]

5. Agreed. Heck, the typical cruise ship looks more like traditional renderings of the Ark than this.

[TheBlackAdder]

33. Does it have a Lido Deck where the dinosaurs are kept?

[alphafemale]

2. That reads as if Noah's ark actually existed.

[lagomorph777]

4. Or we have the slightest idea what it would have looked like.

[Girard442]

3. Y'know if Creationists are so effing confident,...

...they should have petitioned the Navy to build an exact replica to show it can be done.

Spoiler alert: it can't.

[LiberatedUSA]

10. Or the problem of...

...getting two of each creature on Earth without the help of planes, trains, automobiles or ships before the flooding; and not having them eat him and each other alive or die from being in a different environment.

[panader0]

6. What we need is a picture of Noah's Ark. Or of it's remnants.

[Maru Kitteh]

32. It ran aground at the airport.

Nothing left but toothpicks and incest.

[Chainfire]

7. That is the Navy's version of a cruise ship.

It is probably more depressing looking on the inside than the outside. After serving in the Navy, I won't even buy gray socks....

[hunter]

8. What sort of power plant does it have?

A quick search didn't turn anything up.

I presume it will be connected to shore power when it's docked.

I don't think it would be a welcome guest in the host nation if it was spewing diesel or turbine exhaust 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Sewage would be another concern.

These beasts are very similar to cruise ships. Cruise ships are notoriously dirty and frequently violate local anti-pollution laws while in port.

[Zeitghost]

9. It says in the OP

That it is unpowered.

[hunter]

17. Ah, so no electric lights or hot and cold running water for those poor sailors...

... just like the eighteenth century.



I think they just mean it doesn't have a propulsion system.

I suppose it could be built to use shore power exclusively, and to pump it's sewage into the local sewage system, but that would make the barge much less useful as relocatable housing.

In photos it appears to have a funnel (smoke stack).

[Zeitghost]

18. I'm sure

It has backup power onboard as well as power to run necessary systems while underway. But much like a travel trailer I would assume it's designed to hook up to shore power/sewer wherever it is docked. It wouldn't make much sense considering it's designed to more or less stay in one place for a long period of time.

[maxrandb]

22. Strictly Shore Power

with maybe a back-up Emergency Diesel Generator to power firepumps, damage control equipment and emergency lighting.

Had to stay on one of the old Berthing Barges while my ship was in overhaul at Portsmouth, VA Naval Shipyard.

At one time in the past, crazy ass Reichwing Retrumplicans had an idea to use these to solve prison overcrowding.

They were rejected as unfit as a prison.

Anyway, it's good to see the Navy spend money on something to make living conditions better for Sailors, than for some $4B LHD that nobody wants, or needs, or an LCS that turned out to be a piece of crap

[hardluck]

29. Now that's unfair to the LCS

They'll make great artificial reefs as they are decommissioned in the coming years. At least the Navy got the new frigate right with it being based on the FREMM. Should have done that the first time around.

[Angleae]

11. It probably doesn't have one. It's a barge.

A closer comparison would be a mobile home (that floats). Moved by another vehicle and once placed hooked up to electricity/sewage externally.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. That's a hulk.

A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Hulk may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, and to refer to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its buoyant qualities. The word hulk is also used as a verb: a ship is "hulked" to convert it to a hulk. The verb was also applied to crews of Royal Navy ships in dock, who were sent to the receiving ship for accommodation, or "hulked".[1] Hulks have a variety of uses such as housing, prisons, salvage pontoons, gambling sites, naval training, or cargo storage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_%28ship_type%29

Popular Mechanics conversion of a cubit (21 inches) is also very high: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit

[DFW]

35. A hulk? That's incredible.

(RIGHT! What’s a cubit?)

[Ferrets are Cool]

13. I guess when something is imaginary, it can look like ANYTHING.

[Silent3]

14. Few people realize NOAH wasn't a man...

...but the Naval Operations Aquatic Housing division.

[Wounded Bear]

24. I see what you did there...

[Thomas Hurt]

15. that's not an ark, that is a cruise ship...

well maybe a cruise barge.

[HAB911]

16. That's what Noah's Ark looked like?

good to know, I guess

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Apparently, 'gopher wood' should have been translated as 'steel' (nt)

[dalton99a]

19. "It draws all its utilities -- sewage, water, electricity, gas -- from sources on land"

Unlike a ship, the APL barge has no endurance rating and is entirely dependent on facilities and amenities at the naval or civilian port. It draws all its utilities — sewage, water, electricity, gas — from sources on land. Except for a small sewage receptacle, the large and small lighters have no onboard tanks, no weapons, bridge, or engines, and must be towed to their desired pier location and permanently moored.

Since all utilities are connected to the pier, the lighters can function indefinitely with the only real limit being the amount of food that can be stored in their walk-in refrigerators and freezers, according to information provided by NAVSEA.

The new lighter will be capable of serving 1,130 personnel three meals per day. Separate mess rooms will be provided for officers, chief petty officers and enlisted personnel.

The Navy conducted a study to determine the feasibility of converting existing lighters, NAVSEA said. However, this option was determined to be unfeasible due to structural deterioration, design limitations and lifecycle cost considerations. The six lighters to be replaced are over 70 years old and have reached the end of their service lives, it added.

https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2017/7/12/navy-to-replace-70-year-old-berthing-barges

A current APL:

[hunter]

21. Thanks.

This answered my question above.

[Klaralven]

34. At least there is no competition for rooms with a view

Everyone gets the same view that you get from a submarine.

[Sneederbunk]

20. Will complement the Jonah's Whale Submarine.

[Solly Mack]

25. And will the clean sailors go 7 by 7 and the unclean sailors go 2 by 2?

[11 Bravo]

26. That does not look like it was built for heavy seas

Good luck on the way to Japan.

[Chainfire]

28. That is a long tow from Mississippi to Tokyo.

Of course the Navy will move it during typhoon season.

[Chainfire]

27. Me having a little evil streak makes me want to go over to the righ-wing forum

and suggest that these are secret prisons the navy is building for the civil war.

Load 'em up and anchor them 500 miles out to sea. Swim if you are feeling froggy.

[whistler162]

30. The Man Without a Country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_a_Country

[Shellback Squid]

31. give them hotel rooms

it's like being in jail with a chance of drowning

[hunter]

37. There's been increasing friction between the Navy base and the local Japanese community...

... much of it caused by the bad behavior of sailors and other base personnel; everything from vandalism and drunk driving to rapes and murders.

Shore leave has been increasingly restricted.

COVID-19 has only amplified these frictions.

Sadly, this may be the basic reason for this kind of housing. It's much less trouble to keep crews in a floating steel box where they can be closely supervised than it is to put them up in expensive hotels or even in on-base housing where they'll be likely cause trouble.

[DFW]

36. If it's christened the Edmund Fitzgerald II

I’m recommending alternate lodging.