This film, SALVING OF THE FLOATING DRY DOCK AFDM-2 is a half hour long motion picture that was produced both by the Department of the Navy’s Ship Systems Command, and the Supervisor of Salvage of the United States Navy in 1965. It was intended to be used as a reference and training film, detailing the operations that went into the retrieval of the dry dock AFDM-2 after Hurricane Betsy in September of that year.
The film opens with a painted picture of the Dry-dock in the New Orleans bay with a scrolling marquee script that explains what it is the film is about, and how the film itself is a technical report for the planning and techniques used in the raising and recovered of a capsized AFDM-2 dry-dock. It also reports on the various problems that the engineers and planners had faced during the recovered.
At the time this film was made, this was the largest single salvage operation that was performed since the end of World War II. At the end of the marquee note the signature — W.F Searle Jr, Captain of the United States Navy. History has shown that Searle was responsible for the development of modern equipment and techniques still used today in salvage operations.
At the 2:30 mark, the film explains the setting of what had happened to the dry-dock to warrant a salvage operation of this magnitude. Hurricane Betsy touched down in New Orleans in September 1965 and at time was considered the worst hurricane seen in the Gulf of Mexico until 2004’s Hurricane Katrina decimated the city. Dry-dock AFDM-2 was lifted from where it was servicing at the time during the storm and had been knocked on it’s side 3 miles down river. It became entrenched in mud and became a safety hazard in the river. As is shown at 3:30, dry-docks like AFDM-2 were important for the well being of ships in the area and showed what they were used for, moving onto the 4:15 mark where the film shows the specifications of the dry-dock itself, including length, width, height, carrying capacity, and even mentioning predominately what material went into construction.
9:15 forward shows how various different specialists, engineers, ranging from the private sector and Navy became involved in planning the operation that would recover and salve the dry-dock.t The narrator explains the plan to to recover it at just under insurance cost. Using animation, it describes how they planned to retrieve the dry-dock by tilting it over and buoying it up to the surface of the water. From there the majority of the film is spent showing how the process for recovery went, placing weights on one end of the dry-dock to tilt it at a certain angle, followed with filling and clearing water from inside the dry-dock to allow it to be buoyed up eventually.
However, as seen at 18:00 not everything went according to plan between the water levels within the dry-dock, and the rescue operators not achieving the angle they were hoping for, with the weight of the mud also posing as a problem to make retrieval more difficult. However, at 28:00, with the addition of several more buoys to the dry-dock they were able to achieve the angle that they were aiming for and started to become right sided in the water. At 29:30 with the Dry-dock is finally turned upright, cleaned from debris, and towed to be further repaired, and refurbished for more use later on. The ending credits of the film at 30:00 giving special thanks to the people who helped achieve this feat and the recovery of the AFDM-2 Dry-dock.
Eventually AFDM-2 was sold to Gulf Copper & Manufacturing Corp. at Port Arthur, TX., renamed Mr. Morris, and remains in operation there today.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
