Battleship New Jersey will move for the first time in more than 20 years

The Battleship New Jersey, the Navy’s biggest, fastest, and most decorated battleship, will be on the move next spring for the first time since 2001.

Plans call for detaching the battleship from its Camden Waterfront moorings and propelling it south by tugboat to North Atlantic Ship Repair at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The 45,000-ton vessel is to be dry-docked in the same berth where it was built beginning in 1940 and launched on Dec. 7, 1942.

“It’s going back to Berth 3 because Berth 3 is big enough to hold it,” said Marshall Spevak, the interim chief executive officer of the Homeport Alliance. The nonprofit corporation owns and operates the battleship as a museum and memorial.

The bottom of “Big J” — a vessel the length of two football fields and then some — will undergo routine maintenance, repairs, and repainting for the first time in 32 years. Navy maintenance guidelines for inactive ships call for dry-docking every 20 years.

“We’re way overdue and are moving forward now because it will be more expensive every year we wait,” said Spevak, who took a leave of absence as a partner at the Advocacy & Management Group, a Trenton lobbying firm, to take the interim CEO post.

“I’m honored to take the helm and oversee this project,” the 35-year-old Cherry Hill resident said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to answer a higher calling of service.”

Also feeling honored to take on the task: Capt. Joseph E. Benton III, vice president and general manager of McAllister Towing of Philadelphia. He will be in charge of the towing operation, which will involve four tractor tugs to propel and maneuver the “dead” ship to Philly and back.

“Our company is very honored to take part in such a momentous occasion,” said Benton, a Navy Reserve harbor pilot who captained one of the tugs that towed Big J to Camden in 2001.

“It’s a very historic ship, and this is a very important dry-docking,” he said. “The biggest challenge will be the weather.”

The $10 million project will include inspection of all 1,200 of the zinc nodes that form an electrical circuit protecting the submerged portion of the hull from corrosion. About half likely will need replacement.

During dry dock, “about 165 underwater through-hull openings designed to allow cooling water into the engines,” among other functions, also will be inspected, said Ryan Szimanski, the ship’s curator.

“These openings were covered with sheet-metal plates when the ship was decommissioned in 1991, and one has failed so far,” he said. “We have to check every single one and replace them where necessary.”

The project is expected to take at least two months. The goal is to have the ship towed back to Camden in time for Memorial Day and the peak tourist season.

“The ship needs to be inspected, repainted, updated, and brought back home to continue the mission,” said Camden Mayor Vic Carstarphen, who described himself as “a huge supporter” of Big J.

“That ship means so much to so many people, and it brings such value to the city, especially for our youth programs,” he said.

Nearly 80,000 people visited the battleship for tours, overnight stays, and events in 2023. Some of the 70 employees will have to be furloughed during the ship’s absence, Spevak said, but the teak deck replacement project may be able to continue while Big J is in dry dock.

» READ MORE: The Battleship New Jersey’s weatherbeaten deck is getting a $4 million facelift

Last summer, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that $5 million for the maintenance and repainting project would be provided through the N.J. Historical Commission. Camden County is helping to finance the project with $3.2 million in guaranteed revenue bonds, and the alliance also is raising money to pay for the work.

“We put out an appeal letter from retired Vice Adm. Douglas Katz, who commanded the ship from 1987 to 1989, and raised $10,000 overnight,” said Szimanski, who is also the host of the battleship’s YouTube channel, which has 209,000 subscribers.

“I believe the public understands there is a real need for this project,” he said. “These ships won’t just stay afloat forever on their own.”

Planning for the dry dock has been underway for months, and the ship will continue to be open to the public until about a month before the vessel must be made ready for the trip downriver.

But by mid-January, Spevak said, “a crane will arrive at the pier to remove the ship’s mast and wide search radar. We have to take it down so the ship can get under the Walt Whitman Bridge.”

Crowds gathered in many viewing spots along the Delaware when the battleship was towed to Philadelphia in 1999, as well as when it was towed from Philly to Camden in 2001. And the alliance plans to make the departure and return public events.

“There will be a security zone around the ship” as it travels, and the only passengers on board will be ”the tow captain and a very few staff members. There won’t be anyone just riding along,” Spevak said.

That’s because rising and falling tides aside, “the ship hasn’t moved in 22 years,” he said.

“We don’t know what we might encounter. The electricity and utilities will be disconnected. And there’s no getting off the ship.”

Patricia Egan Jones, a former member of the N.J. Assembly and the Camden County Board of Commissioners, was among the core group of South Jersey residents, business people, and public officials who advocated for the battleship to be sited in Camden — despite the state-appointed commission’s implacable effort to steer Big J to Bayonne or elsewhere in North Jersey.

“We put together a great board for the Homeport Alliance,” she said. “We came up with a three-volume plan that’s still cited as a role model. We had 30,000 signatures on petitions.”

The Navy chose Camden over Bayonne. “And we found a way to bring it here, because it belonged here,” said Jones.

And the relationship between Camden, Philly, and the Battleship New Jersey “is deeper than nostalgia,” she said.

Thousands of people were employed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard when Big J was built, and thousands more served on it during World War II and later, said Szimanski. And while many have passed on, their children and grandchildren “feel this is their ship,” he said.

When Camden got the battleship, “once again, the underdog was blessed to prevail,” said Camden County Sheriff Gilbert ”Whip” Wilson, an Air Force veteran and lifelong Camden resident.

“I want to make sure the battleship is maintained the way it ought to be,” said Wilson, an alliance board member.

“I want to make sure it stays here.”