World’s biggest warship puts in to Phuket
The US Navy even fixed the weather for their visit
Question: What covers 10 rai (4½ acres or 1.8 hectares) and floats? Answer: the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, the world’s largest warship.
Let’s look at this in terms that the local property industry will understand: the Ronnie cost US$4.5 billion to build, which makes that flight deck a juicy US$450 million a rai, or B15,000,000,000.
Granted, it does come with an ultra-modern castle on one side packed with fancy electronics (the kind that, if we told you anything about them, we’d have to shoot you) and lots of other special supporting features: a full-time staff of 5,680 people, including five dentists, an oral surgeon and five physicians; a 63-bed hospital, a chapel, a fitness trainer and five gyms, Internet connections for everyone, and its own newspaper, radio and TV station.
It has a top speed of 30+ knots or 55 kmh, with power provided by a nuclear pile and, niftiest of all, a high-speed elevator the size of half a football field.
Read my lips - NO jet-skis - Adm Scott Hebner
Optional extras (not in the price): F/A-18C Hornet fighter-bombers, F/a-18E/F Super Hornet fighter aircraft, EA-6B Prowlers electronic activity suppressor aircraft, E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft and sundry helicopters and logistics aircraft. Price, another gazillion or two.
Running costs when “fully operating” – US$1 million a day. So if you want to buy this baby, make sure you have some spare change for overheads and day-to-day expenses.
The Reagan, which is in Phuket to give the crew their first liberty in a month and a half (including a stint off Pakistan during which its aircraft flew 1,150 sorties over Taliban territory in Afghanistan), is of course giving back to the community. Each day, half the crew will be ashore having fun and pouring an estimated US$1 million a day into local pockets.
Three hundred of the crew will be giving up some of their Patong time to get involved in ComRels – community relations projects such as painting schools or building homes for needy people.
Just the thing for nipping across to Samui
The sailors have had three days of indoctrination in how to behave onshore, said Rear Admiral Scott Hebner, who’s in charge of Carrier Strike Group Seven, which includes the Reagan. “You can have fun,” he explained, “but there’s a right way to have fun and not overdo it.”
And the big question: Will the crew of the Reagan and its accompanying ships, the USS Chancellorsville and USS Gridley, be seen on jet-skis and then, shortly after, in controversial TV documentaries featuring the righteous if slightly confrontational JJ, proud jet-ski owner?
No, said the Admiral. “Sailors are not allowed to rent cars, two-wheel vehicles or jet-skis [while on liberty in foreign ports].” The penalties for infringing these rules, he added, are “severe”.
