Counter-Capsizing a Battleship

On August 2, 1916, a huge fireswept through the new Italianbattleship Leonardo Da Vinci

killing 250 crewmen. Flooding to putout the fire resulted in the ship capsiz-ing (Figure 1). Although referred to insome texts as suffering a magazineexplosion (which implies a massive dis-ruption), the ship was generally intact.The incident was a severe fire and aminor explosion that caused two hullruptures near the magazines and a largetear in the top deck. A wartime boardof inquiry placed the blame on Austro-Hungarian agents sabotaging the ship.A post-World War I Royal Navy surveyof accidental ship losses, using confi-dential Italian Navy information, con-cluded that it was mishandling of thevolatile fuel benzene that started thechain of events leading to capsizing.

The Leonardo Da VinciThe Leonardo Da Vinci was the thirdship of the Conte Di Cavour class. The554 foot length on waterline, 24,700 tonfull load battleship carried thirteen 12inch guns in five turrets. (Figures 2 and3). She was completed in May 1914 sowas practically new when the disasterstruck. The ship’s bow was afloat but thestern was on the harbor bottom with themasts, funnels, and upperworks sunkdeeply into the mud (Figure 4).

The Salvage Plan The first work on the Leonardo DaVinci, directed by the lead engineer,Lieutenant General Edgardo Ferrati ofthe Naval Constructors, and his assis-tant, Major Giannelli, was to survey thewreck and build models in order todetermine what needed to be done.Later, Lieutenant General Carpi tookcharge of the project after GeneralFerrati’s death.

The usual process of salvaging an over-turned ship is to physically pull itupright with a massive system of leversand wires [Appendix I] but theLeonardo Da Vinci was far from shore.The Italian officers had to come up with

AbstractThe new Italian battleshipLeonardo Da Vinci suf-fered a severe fire in 1916resulting in the ship cap-sizing in Taranto harbor.The ship was notdestroyed but upsidedown. The Italian Navythought she could be sal-vaged and returned toservice. The chosenapproach was to refloatthe ship upside down.Superstructure was cutaway under water and theturrets dropped to bottomof the harbor in order toreduce the draft enoughto get the ship into a dry-dock. In drydock, thestill bottom-up ship wasprepared for being turnedupright. The ship wastaken out of the drydockand by weight additionsplus selective flooding theship was capsized againbut this time comingupright. Two appendicesto the paper describeother ships floatingupside down and otherapproaches to rightingcapsized ships..

FIGURE 1: The condition of the ship just following the disaster (NHC).

Counter-Capsizing a BattleshipPhillip Sims

H I S T O R I C A L P E R S P E C T I V E

NAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL WINTER 2005 1 0 1

another solution. At first, construction of aspecial floating drydock was considered, butbecause of wartime needs for steel thatapproach was abandoned. It was decided tofloat the ship upside down into the existinggraving dock at Taranto. Ships float perfect-ly well upside down and, in fact, can be easi-er to put afloat in that condition [AppendixII]. However, the graving dock had a 40 ftdraft limitation incompatible with the upper-works of a ship floating upside down, sothey would have to be cut away.

The Salvage Work Small huts, to serve as workshops, were builton the flat of the bottom and small supportships clustered alongside supplied otherresources (Figure 5). An electric power cablewas run out from shore to operate machin-ery such as air compressors for the hard hatdivers. The divers worked at both sides ofthe floatation problem – removing ammuni-tion and other portable items from thewreck and sealing the damaged part of thehull with patches. Although the ship wascoal fired, there was enough oil inside theship to hinder the divers, visibility. One diverlost his life doing the work.

The next stage was creating a bubble withinthe ship forcing water out to 25 feet belowthe harbor level. Using airlocks, workerscould operate inside the ship without divingequipment. One of the major efforts wasdetaching the turrets, both to reduce weightand the ship’s draft. One barbette was dewa-tered down to 56 feet below the surface inorder to allow workers to cut away the tur-ret connections. During 1918, 150 menworked at removing the ship’s upperworks.At the end of the cutting process, theremaining ship weighed 18,000 metric tons.

Technology Insertion in Today’s Counter-Capsizing a Battleship

1 0 2 WINTER 2005 NAVAL ENGINEERS JOURNAL

FIGURE 2:The layout of the ship(BA)

FIGURE 3: Leonardo Da Vinci ontrials (USNI)

The upper hull deck, its plate designed toresist routine topside loads, had to be strength-ened to take the hydrostatic pressure since itwould be serving as the ship’s bottom.

Eight large pontoons, of 350 tons liftingcapacity each, were attached to the ship withsteel cables. A special channel, a mile andhalf long, had to be dredged between thewreck and the mouth of the drydock. Thedrydock’s blocking was reconfigured to havean outline of the deck edge instead of theusual keel blocks. On September 17, 1919more air was pressed into the ship to getenough buoyancy to pull free of the mud.Tugs pulled the ship down the dredged pathto the drydock. Figure 6 shows the shipentering the dock. Dewatering the dock wasdeliberately conducted in a slow fashion tomake sure the blocking system was matchingthe ship (Figures 7 and 8).

Preparation For RollingIn the dock, additional repairs were madeincluding installation of additional tanks toaccept ballast water and 400 tons of solidballast were fitted. Figure 9 shows therepaired but still upside-down ship departingthe drydock for a 60 foot deep, speciallydredged, harbor area.

One counter-capsizes a battleship the sameway one capsizes a ship; raising the center ofgravity and removing intact waterplane.Approximately 2,900 tons of water were putinto the double and triple bottoms to raisethe center of gravity. Another 3,600 tons ofballast water was put into port wing tanksmaking the ship displace 26,000 tons with a30 degree list. Once in the rolling area,


FIGURE 4: Condition of theCapsized Ship (ENG)

FIGURE 5: Small ship clusteredaround with work-shops on the upturnedhull (IN-Guidoni )

FIGURE 6: Ship entering the dock.The structure on top ofthe stern is a pierinstalled for accesswhen the ship washeavily trimmed by thestern (IN-Guidoni)

valves were opened to let free flooding waterinto major compartments with a total capac-ity of 1700 tons. However, it took only 850tons to further the list to 45 degrees andstart the roll. The Engineer (1921) reportedthat the January 24th event was treated as apublic event with numerous spectatorsincluding naval attaches from around theworld invited to watch. A photographic

blimp, Figure 10, was assigned to capture theevent.

In Figure 11, the preparations continue andFigure 12 is the ship in the act of rollingupright. Figure 13 shows the rightingmoment versus angle of ship as she rolled.The ship rolled past vertical to 23 degreesand then stabilized itself again, right side upwith a starboard list of 22 degrees.

When the ship stabilized upright (Figures 14and 15), a sign, painted onto the deck indrydock, could be seen proclaiming that“Ogni torto si dirizza” (every wrong rightsitself). The hull was then moved to a shore-side mooring (Figure 16). The turrets,dropped to the harbor floor earlier, wereretrieved by a special circular floatation col-lar and brought into the drydock upsidedown for reconstruction. (Figure 17).

Fate of the ShipThe proposed reconstruction of the shipwould have suppressed the midships tripleturret in favor of six 102 mm anti-aircraftguns (Fraccaroli, 1985). The Italian Navywas so dedicated to bringing the ship backinto service that during the WashingtonNaval Disarmament Conference they insistedthat the Leonardo Da Vinci be counted aspart of their active fleet tonnage(Richardson, 1923).

However, after all the salvage work, post-WWI economic conditions and the conditionof the ship after several years with seawaterinside made the reconstruction uneconomi-cal. The ship was stricken and sold for scrapon March 26, 1923.

The 1922 Washington Naval DisarmamentTreaty had a provision allowing Navies toreplace ships lost in accidents such as the bat-tleship France which foundered in 1922.Richardson (1923) reports it was a consensusof the former delegates that the Leonardo Da



FIGURE 7 (ABOVE): Ship afloat in thedock with the pon-toons alongside. (IN-Guidoni)

FIGURE 8: In the dock on verytall blocks. (IN-Masters)

FIGURE 9: Ship leaving the dock;note angle indicatorattached to the stern.(IN- Masters)

Vinci was not covered by that section sinceher condition was well known to the Italianswhen the treaty was negotiated.

The Normandie/Lafayette SalvageAlthough it was done exceedingly slowly(starting August 4, 1943 with the ship afloatupright September 15th), the capsized for-mer liner Normandie was a buoyancy dri-ven counter-capsizing similar to that used bythe Italians. The collapsed ship was at anangle to a pier making it difficult to pull itup mechanically.

Divers worked on the capsized ship remov-ing loads and the superstructure. They madethe ship’s deck watertight and closed flood-ing paths in the side shell along with addingnew tankage. Water was sequentiallypumped into the new and existing tanks toroll the ship without using mechanicallevers. One reason for the slow-motionrolling was the hull was in contact with arock ledge that was doing additional dam-age as the ship turned (requiring more


FIGURE 10(LEFT): Photo blimp abovethe hull (IN-Guidoni)

FIGURE 11: View from the blimpof the hull and sup-port craft. (IN-Masters)

FIGURE 12: The ship counter-capsizing. (IN-Masters)

underwater work). The other reason wasthe ship was very near a pier which couldhave been impacted in a violent roll. (SUP-SALV 1946)

Conclusions While mechanically pulling a ship upright isthe most common solution to righting acapsized ship, counter-capsizing a floatinghull is possible. The Italian experience with

the Leonardo Da Vinci showed how effec-tive (and dramatic) such salvage could be.

REFERENCES

The Engineer, “The Salving of the ItalianBattleship Leonardo da Vinci”, The Engineer,March 18, 1921, London, The EngineerNewspaper, pg 281-83

Richardson, Sir Alexander and Hurd, Archibald,editors, Brassey’s Naval and Shipping Annual1914, London, William Clowes and Sons,Limited.

Richardson, Sir Alexander and Hurd, Archibald,editors, Brassey’s Naval and Shipping Annual1923, London, William Clowes and Sons,Limited, pg 62.

Fraccaroli, Aldo, Italian section of Conway’s Allthe World’s Fighting Ships 1906-1921, NavalInstitute Press, Annapolis, 1985, pg 259.

Guidoni, Lieut. Colonel A., “The Salvage of theLeonardo Da Vinci”, Proceedings of the U.S.Naval Institute, November 1921, Vol 47, No 11.pg 1689-1696).

Masters, David, The Wonders of Salvage, JohnLane the Bodley Head Limited, London 1926, pg79-93

Royal Navy CB 1515 (24) The Technical Historyand Index, Volume 2, Part 24 “Storage andHandling of Explosives in Warships” (October,1919) posted on internet athttp://www.gwpda.org/naval/thist24.htm

Supervisor of Salvage, Report of the Salvage ofthe U.S.S. Lafayette (ex-S.S. Normandie), NavyDepartment, Bureau of Ships, NAVSHIPS 250-880-21, 1946.

PHOTO AND DRAWING CREDITSIN-Guidoni = Italian Navy found in Guidoni(1921),

IN-Masters = Italian Navy found in Masters(1926).

NHC = Naval Historical Center,

USNIP = US Naval Institute Photo Service,

BA = Brassey’s Annual (1914),

ENG = The Engineer



FIGURE 13 (ABOVE): The right moment curve versus angle (ENG)

FIGURE 14: bow view of theupturned hull (IN-Masters)

FIGURE 15: Stern view of theupright but still heavi-ly listed (IN-Guidoni)

Appendix I: Pulling Capsized Ships UprightThe obvious way to upright a capsized shipis to physically pull it upright. A well docu-mented case is the battleship Oklahomadescribed by Wallin (1960). Twenty-one elec-tric winches mounted on shore slowly pulledthe ship upright (Figures I-1, I-2). To reduceground pressure, hence rolling resistance, theship was tightened up as much as possible togive 20,000 tons of buoyancy to the 35,000ton ship.

Masters (1926) has descriptions and picturesof the troop ship Onward, the dredgerSilurus, and the liner St. Paul being pulled upright. An unusual variation of providingpulling power was the Onward’s salvagewhich used five railroad locomotives on anearby pier to pull the cables.

In 1923, the Brazilian steamship Avare waspulled upright by 1320 tons of pullingpower spread over 30 cables pulling on A-frames attached to the hull (Probst 1924).There are additional papers on pullingupright merchant ships such as the 6100tons of sunken weight Segovia (Norton1942) and modern lumber barges in thePacific Northwest (Haig-Brown 2003).

APPENDIX I REFERENCES

Haig-Brown, Alan, “Salvors set a Capsized BargeRight”, Professional Mariner (#71 April/May2003, pg 50-54)

Masters [Op cit], p 187-189, pp 163-165

Norton, Harold F., “Raising the S.S. Segovia”,SNAME Transactions Vol 40, 1942, p 247-268

Probst, Dr. M. “Righting a Capsized Ship”,Journal of the American Society of NavalEngineers, February 1924, Vol XXXVI, p 129-132


FIGURE 16: After further work to reduce the list, the ship wasmoored to the shore. (IN-Guidoni)

FIGURE 17: Still upside down, two salvage triple turrets are in thedrydock. The one on the right has the special circular lift-ing collar still attached. (IN-Guidoni)

FIGURE I-1;USS Oklahoma at PearlHarbor showing thelever arms and thecables to the shore(NHC)

Wallin, Vice Admiral Homer N., USN, PearlHarbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and FinalAppraisal, Naval History Division, Washington,1968, pg 253-7, 356.

Appendix II: Other Ships Floating Upside DownShips float perfectly well upside down. Infact, if fully submerged, it is easier to makean upside-down ship watertight since theyare so few penetrations below the originalwaterline. McLaughlin (2003) reported thatthe Russian battleship Imperatritsa Mariia in1916 suffered a fire-explosion-capsizing sim-ilar to that of the Leonardo Da Vinci. Shewas raised upside-down on May 8, 1918,with her turrets dropped, and put into dry-dock in May 1919. She remained in dockuntil 1923, without much repair work beingdone, and floated out to allow the dock andshoring to be repaired. In 1926, the stillupside-down ship was put back into thedock to be scrapped. Her turrets were recov-ered from the harbor bottom and later usedas coastal batteries.

Since the German battleships scuttled atScapa Flow were being raised only tobecome scrap, seven of them were floatedand towed upside-down (George 1973).Because of the interruption of WWII, thepartially salvaged Derfflinger was kept afloatupside-down for seven years.

The Bismarck’s dropping of her turrets aftercapsizing has received a great deal of presscoverage. The battleship Bayern, also armedwith 15 inch twin turrets, surprised her sal-vagers by unexpectedly popping to the sur-face after dropped her four turrets. In con-trast, the German 12 inch turrets remainedattached to their upside-down ships andwere convenient flat surfaces for blocking upthe ships in drydocks. George (1973) pre-sents many pictures of the raised ships float-ing and drydocked upside-down.

Merchant ships continue to have accidentsthat result in them floating upside down. Arecent example is the MS Rocknes thatrolled over in Norway in January of 2004.(Washington Times 2004).

APPENDIX II REFERENCES

George, S C, Jutland to Junkyard, PatrickStephens, Cambridge, 1973.

McLaughlin, Stephen, Russian & SovietBattleships, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis,2003.

“Search for 15 seaman scrapped: Ship capsizedin icy waters”, The Washington Times, January20, 2004



FIGURE I-2; The Oklahoma par-tially upright. Cableconnections havebeen moved from thelever arms to the deckedge. (NHC)

PHILIP SIMS graduated from Webb Institute in 1971 and went to work for the Advanced DesignBranch of the Naval Ship Engineering Center (now NAVSEA). He was part of the FFG 7 design team in1972. From 1973 to 1975 he was involved in creating automated early stage aircraft carrier design pro-cedures and performing carrier design studies as part of the Sea Based Air Study and CVV design. Hereturned to school in 1976 for a master’s degree at MIT. The 1977-80 period was spent in updating theNavy’s destroyer-cruiser early stage design procedures and conducting design studies for the CGN 41,the reserve FFX, and the DDX (later DDG 51) projects. During this period he was also team leader on

Surface Ship Concept Formulation (CONFORM) studies of new ships such as a heavy combatant and asurvivable cruiser. From 1981-83 he was the naval architect on the BB 62 modernization/ reactivationand Ship Design Manager for the BB 61 and CA 134. He was a member of the NATO Staff RequirementsWorking Group for the NATO Frigate Replacement for the 1990s (NFR 90) and the principle navalarchitect on NFR 90 at NAVSEA. The early 1990s were spent on CGN, DDG 993 and CG 47 moderniza-tion studies. He conducted Navy studies of the Arsenal Ship, prior to the award to industry teams, fol-lowed by review of the industry ships. He prepared destroyer/frigate studies as part of the ForceArchitecture phase of SC 21. In 1999, he started conducting the first pre-milestone A studies of JCC(X)and stayed with the program until its cancellation in 2003. He currently conducts comparative navalarchitecture studies and starting the very early work on the CG(X).


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