MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nuclear super-carrier in the South Atlantic next May

USS George Washington

A mighty warrior of the seas, USS George Washington will be visiting Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile next May.

The sixth ship in the Nimitz of nuclear-powered super-carriers and the fourth US Navy ship to be named after the first president of the United States, she was built by Newport News Shipbuilding and was commissioned July 4, 1992. GW will be sailing along the South American east coast after having completed in late April naval exercises off Brazil with the Argentine and Brazilian navies in the framework of the 49th Unitas Operation. GW is expected to cross the Magellan strait between May 9 and 10 on her way to the Pacific Ocean. Punta Arenas Chilean Navy Zone III commander R/A Felipe Ojeda said an operational call in Punta Arenas for a few hours is under consideration. The nuclear powered super carrier is 333 meters long, 78 meters wide and is as high as a twenty-four-story building, at 74 meters. She can accommodate approximately 80 aircraft and has a flight deck of 18,000 m², using four elevators that are 360 m² each to move planes between the flight deck and the hangar bay. With a combat load, GW displaces almost 97,000 tons and can accommodate 6,250 crewmembers. Her four distilling units can make 1,500 m³ of potable water a day; her food service divisions serve 18,000 meals per day. There are over 2,500 compartments on board requiring 2,520 tons of air conditioning capacity, enough to cool over 2,000 homes. The warship uses two Mark II stockless anchors that weigh 30 tons each, with each link of the anchor chain weighing 160 kg. She is currently equipped with 3 20 mm Phalanx CIWS mounts and 2 Sea Sparrow SAM launchers. 1 CIWS and 1 Sea Sparrow mount were removed to make way for 2 RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, installed during the 2005 Planned Incremental Availability (PIA). GW is scheduled to replace USS Kitty Hawk as the forward-deployed carrier at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. She will be the first nuclear-powered surface warship permanently stationed in Japan. GW will assume Carrier Air Wing 5, already based in Japan. R/A Ojeda said that this is not the first time a nuclear super carrier crosses the Magellan Strait. On June 20, 1994 USS Ronald Reagan also visited Punta Arenas on its way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. "These deployments are an excellent chance for the local community to see the magnitude of theses vessels. And sailing through the strait is also a challenge for the Chilean pilots who will be boarding her" said Ojeda.