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USS Kitty Hawk, (CV63, sister ship to CV60, USS Saratoga) in the Western Pacific, July 2008

That's 1,069 foot long, 282 foot wide, 83,090 tons of ship being tossed around, the ocean is amazing.

Kitty Hawk's transiting back to the states for her last time prior to her scheduled decommissioning. She's been relieved by USS George Washington (CVN-73), our 1st nuclear forward deployed carrier in Yokosuka, Japan.

It's not often you see a big-deck carrier take seas over the bow.

To put it in perspective, those have to be at least 40-footers. You can see the ship shudder when it hits them (camera wiggle). Must have been a wild ride. Wonder if she had escorts with her? It would have been a lot worse on one of them!

P.S. You can bet the Air Boss was wishing he had had that chopper parked a lot further aft.

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Last Updated:
7/16/08