We spent the better part of a day at Nauticus where the USS Wisconsin Battle Ship is docked. Jon and I have had the chance to tour the USS Missouri in Hawaii and it is almost identical to the Wisconsin. It was a great opportunity for the kids to get to walk around the ship and learn more about it.
Did you know the cannons are not attached to the ship? The reason being that if the ship capsized, the cannons would not take the ship down immediately and would allow for possible rescue. Cool, huh?
I am simply amazed at the size of the chains for the anchors alone...and that is just one set of many chains aboard the ship. I can't fathom how something so ginormous can stay afloat.
The girls took a turn at turning one of the steering wheels...I'm guessing it wasn't very easy!
They showed the kids how the navy officers and sailors would treat the wood decks to keep them nice looking. They do not use any kind of stain on the wood. They use pumas like stones, place a long stick in it and while standing in a line with other sailors, they would move the stone back and forth in small horizontal motions. They would all have to move at the same pace and rhythm or else it they would continually be bumping into one another. The kids had a blast trying it out.
This gentleman gave the coolest demonstration on how the big cannons on the ship worked.
This picture shows the shock effect after a cannon is fired...
This was a sample of what the gun powder bags looked like. The cannon could shoot twice in one minute. The bags are about 110 pounds each and they would have to load 6 of them in thirty seconds before the cannon fired a second time.
Some of the kids got to experience hurricane winds in this booth.
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