USS Enterprise Anchor Installed on USS Abraham Lincoln

Posted by Julia Welling October 2, 2014

A team of shipbuilders replaces USS Abraham Lincoln’s anchor with one removed from USS Enterprise. Lincoln is undergoing a refueling and complex overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding at the same time Enterprise is being inactivated. Photo by Ricky Thompson/HII

Although the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65) is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2016, its legacy lives on, and so does one of its anchors. Huntington Ingalls Industries' (HII) Newport News Shipbuilding division recently installed one of Enterprise's anchors on younger carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72).

USS Enterprise, originally built by Newport News in the 1960s and refueled for the third and final time in the early '90s, is currently docked at the shipyard's Pier 2 for inactivation. After more than 50 years of service, the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier is being put to rest before final disposal.

In a drydock a few hundred yards from Enterprise, USS Abraham Lincoln, less than half the age of Enterprise, is undergoing its refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH). During this multi-year process, every inch of the carrier is updated or refurbished, including its two massive anchors.

During the overhaul process, Newport News shipbuilders' inspections found that one of the Lincoln's anchors needed to be replaced, so shipbuilders swapped out the old anchor for one of Enterprise's. The anchor, cast in 1962 and weighing in at 30 tons, is an exact twin of Lincoln's other, and much younger, anchor. With two working anchors, the sailors aboard Lincoln will be able to test the carrier's anchor-lift system during sea trials, scheduled for 2016.

"The legacy of Enterprise will live on in her sailors, her shipbuilders and now in the anchor aboard Lincoln," said Chris Miner, Newport News' vice president of in-service aircraft carrier programs. "The ships are reaching important milestones in their lives; Lincoln will finish her mid-life RCOH, and Enterprise will finish her inactivation, both in 2016. With this anchor, both ships will be linked, and Lincoln will carry Enterprise's spirit as it returns to the fleet."