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eXploder AD3 is A-Class sailing catamaran – one of the fastest singlehanded sailing boats on the water. The eXploder A-Class cats have been in production since 2013 and in that time won a staggering 6 World Championship titles and 15 Continental titles Since it’s conception the eXploder platform has been improved over and over again. The focus behind the current boat has been aerodynamics. Optimised hulls and foils / rudders / daggers are constantly being tested and improved.

OPTIMISED DAGGERBOARDS/RUDDERS OUTLINES AND PROFILES

Tweaked and tested foils are not only incredibly fast, but also easy to control. This is a race-winning combination. When a customer buys a new boat, it is always provided with the latest, fastest, tested foils / rudders / daggers.

FOCUS ON AERODYNAMICS

Hulls, beams, double-layered trampoline, hull-beam connections – all these parts are optimised for drag reduction. Together with D3 Applied Technologies we’ve ran countless tests and CFD simulations to try to understand where the biggest efficiency gain lies. This is not a hydro story anymore, it’s a flying object! Also the whole package is designed to be very clean and as visually appealing as possible.

EASY ANGLE TRIM

All the foil trimming systems are clean and easy to operate on any course, allowing on the fly trimming, including rudder differential in either displacement of foiling mode.

All boat elements are designed to be durable, failure-free and easy to operate and manufactured using the latest in material and technology

READY TO SAIL

The eXploder AD3 is provided with all needed systems and even trim markings making initial boat set-up intuitive. To go out on the water, everything what is needed is to put a mast on, insert foils / rudders in their slots, hoist a sail and attach a Cunningham and a mainsheet.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PROVEN

In our business the only way to determine performance is through results. The eXploder AD3 has won 6 World and 15 Continental titles in the last 7 years.

DESIGNER / R&D TEAM COMMENT

“The AD3 2020 model is the result of over a decade of learning, testing, failing, succeeding at times, and overall, developing these boats. With the previous platform we made some compromises from a design perspective, enabling us to build test boats over the years with different board and beam locations. It has been a very successful platform, widely used by the majority of the class. However, in the last couple of years we have been considering changing the daggerboard cases, but in order to respect our philosophy, that would require a new platform. So last year we tested a few systems on the 2019 AD3 (carbon traveller car, rudder differential, etc), and prepared the grounds to design a new model in 2020.

You have limited opportunities to design a new platform, and in most projects, new ideas sometimes fade away in the design process as we face boatbuilding realities (materials, tooling, custom hardware, etc). On this model we were given plenty of freedom in terms of shapes and surfacing, and for once this was maintained until the end. The aero-package of an upwind-foiler is one of the main drivers of performance, and this boat is very clean in that aspect.

We took the opportunity to update the foils (Z42) and the rudder elevators. We not only changed the rondure and planform but also the family of foil sections following the most recent design tool developments. As of rudder lift control, we can sail now with a more extreme rudder differential. Righting moment is the horsepower of any boat, so this is a huge performance gain, particularly upwind.

The rest was our typical process of designing a racing boat: countless design iterations, CFD for aero and hydrodynamics, VPP iterations to update polars etc From a hydro point of view, this hull is designed as a foiler, so we ended up reducing the volume, rocker and freeboard of the hulls. Interestingly, we managed to reduce drag at lower speeds (2 hull downwind and non-foiling upwind).

The bar was set as high as it gets with it’s predecessor but we are 100% confident that the AD3 is another step towards the ultimate performance. “

F1x A-class foiling catamaran

World champion, lighter = better, craftsmanship, meet the foiling f1x a-class catamaran.

This is the ultimate singlehanded foiling catamaran of the moment: ultramodern, incredibly fast, very agile, extremely strong and feather-light, in an aerodynamic and ergonomic design. The perfect total package, packed in 1 foiling catamaran. This is the world’s coolest boat for singlehanded races and the winner of several A-cat world championships and many other sailing races.

The 2020-F1x A-cat is exactly the same foiling catamaran that made Mischa Heemskerk Vice-World Champion at the Herveybay Worlds 2018 in Australia and World Champion at Weymouth 2019. All our foiling F1x A-class catamarans come straight, ready to race and ‘Mischa-tuned’ from our factory.

Unique design enables top performances

The F1x A-class foiling catamaran is the ultimate reflection of our current design language. The aerodynamic design accentuates the performance qualities of this super fast foiling racing boat. The sophisticated deck plan provides clear control and minimal air resistance.

Foils The rudders and daggerboard foils used on the F1x A-class foiling catamarans are produced with the highest quality carbon pre-preg fibers. The foils are cured in our own Autoclave . Our winning foil design was created in close cooperation with Glenn Ashby and the designers of AC Team New Zealand .

Construction The F1x A-cat is manufactured entirely according to the carbon pre-preg/ Nomex production method, and cured in our Autoclave. This technology is the same as used in the aerospace industry and within other foiling boats like for example, the America’s Cup.

Design The design of the F1x foiling A-class catamaran was completely conceived by the DNA design team and made at DNA’s own yard. In the DNA design team Pieterjan Dwarshuis, Mischa Heemskerk and the renowned Dutch industrial design engineer Rudo Enserink worked closely together to create the perfect foiling A-class catamaran.

We build your new foiling boat!

Technical details.

The F1x A-class foiling catamaran has a number of unique features that improve performance. For example:

• Semi ridged trampoline. Gives extra torsional stiffness to the boat and increases its aerodynamic characteristics.
• Patented main-sheet-wheel-system. For more direct and faster trim of the main sail.
• Aerodynamically placed traveller car.
• Flexible daggerboard casings. For minimal water absorption in floating mode.
• Aerodynamically shaped ‘beams’.
• Adjustable T-rudders. Foiling with rudder differential is possible.

Specifications

LOA: 5.49 m BOA: 2.30 m Max. draught: 1.20 m Sail area: 13.94 m Total weight: ca. 53 kg Top speed: 31 kn Extra: All measurements according to IACA Class regulations.

Buy a champion's boat!

Are you excited to buy a F1x A-class foiling catamaran from DNA Performance Sailing? Please fill in our contact form:

Yes, I want a F1x A-cat!

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One-Design Class Profile: A-Cat

November 18, 2014 by Sail1Design Editor 1 Comment

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The ‘A’ Class Catamaran – Its place at the top table.

At 18ft long with a total allowed rig area of 150ft2, but weighing in at a mere 75kg, the ‘A’ Class is very much a Formula One car in catamaran form and in the last few years, developments have seen this class take off more than ever before, quite literally.

Anyone with an interest in the hi-tech aspects of sailing will probably know something of the ‘A’ Cat.  They are spread worldwide with large fleets in Australia, USA/Canada, throughout Europe and there is even a growing fleet emerging in Argentina.  They have had some 55+ years of open design resulting in them now being amongst the most highly developed small sailing boat classes on the planet.

Some History.

Originating from a desire in the late 1950’s by the IYRU (Later renamed ISAF and now World Sailing), to encourage racing and design development of catamarans. They proposed four classes with simple size criteria based on length, beam and sail area, and crucially, with minimal design rules.   The A-Class logo was chosen by the IYRU when their committee decided in 1956 to classify the catamarans into those 4 categories. A, B, C and D as construction classes. To symbolize the two hulls the letter "A" had a double underlign, same  as the B's,  the C's and the D's. From the beginning the A-Cats had the double underligned letter "A" on the sails and it was used on the letter heads. (Examples were the A-Lion, Australis, Unicorn, Quest A, Catalina, Rhapsody a.s.o.).  The ‘A’ class is by far the largest remnant of the four classes.  The ‘B’ class was a 20ft twin hander with 235ft2 of sail and developed into the Tornado and a few offshoots such as the F18.  The ‘C’ class was another twin, but at 25ft with a 300ft2 rig, has become a super sophisticated monster and the pinnacle of small cat design that races for the Little America’s Cup.  The ‘D’ Class was 32ft and a sail of 500ft2 with three crew, but rapidly dwindled away. 

Various designs for the ‘A’ bubbled away until the IYRU held trials to seek out the best designs in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ classes and to award them international status.  At the Catamaran Club on the Isle of Sheppey in 1967, the Tornado won the ‘B’ class, and in the ‘A’ class category the British Unicorn competed, along with with several other boats, against Graham Johnston’s Australian Australis design.  At that time the spec was simply to be a single-handed cat with sliding seat or trapeze restricted only by length, beam and sail area.  The Australis design won and gained international class status.  However, the Unicorn design still gained popularity in the UK and Europe. It eventually became a strict one-design class with rules on hulls, weight and mast diameter, which accounts for the vastly different sail shapes now seen on the two boat designs.  Today the Unicorn still measures and is still accepted as an ‘A’ Class cat.

So, the free reign given within the ‘A’s development class spec allowed several other designs to arrive, each an attempt to improve on the other.  All modern designs can trace their evolution back to these early boats in one way or another.  Many home built designs turned up, and home building of ‘A’ Cats continues today, particularly in the USA, where home building tends to be more popular.

As building and materials technology improved, the stitch and glue plywood built and the glass fibre built boats, in order to save weight and get down to the absolute minimum, needed to be made with the strength only in certain high load areas – shroud plates, beam mounts, foil cases etc., This resulted in the class getting a bit of a reputation for being fast but rather delicate.  Gradually these materials gave way to the carbon foam and carbon nomex sandwich construction.

Fast Hull Shapes

The Australis hulls were pointed at both ends similar to a canoe, in an attempt to produce a drag-reducing hull.  The designs were often determined by the materials available and nowadays space age construction techniques are possibly one reason that the modern boat is now becoming increasingly popular, as it is producing immensely stiff and strong yet light boats, capable of withstanding hard racing for several years. 

Currently, the modern ‘A’ cat bears a striking resemblance to its rather higher profile cousin, the AC45 .  The distinctive Dreadnought shaped bows of the  ‘wave-piercing’ hull design reduces the pitching moment when in waves.  The hull is essentially upside down when compared to many boat hulls.  The widest part is towards the bottom with the result that the hull won’t sink as far before the buoyancy starts to push it up again so floats higher. They also tend to have the beams bonded in making it a very stiff one-piece unit.  Hull sections and profiles continue to change.  The requirements of a boat designed to foil mean that the underwater hull shapes are starting to be optimized for lighter wind sailing, as the hull should be out of the water when it is going fast in a higher wind. 

On the latest 2016 boats, aerodynamic drag is now recognized as increasingly more important as the airflow over the boat, with the added apparent wind, can sometimes be as high as 30 or 40 knots.  Beams are now aerodynamically streamlined, smoothing the airflow over the drumskin tight trampoline.  Double skin trampolines are also a new design feature.  Previously the underside of the tramp was a mass of ropes, chords and bungees.  Now these are sandwiched between two airtight skins.  On one new design, the Holland Composites DNA, even the tiller bar is now streamlined to match the rear beams curved profile!

There are several elements key to the ‘A’ cats speed and success.  Over the last 15 years much work has been done on the design of foils (rudders and daggerboards).  Initially the foils were all straight as the technology to make them anything else, without risking failure, was simply not available.  However, they could be put in at an angle and canted towards the centerline.  This seemed to give a little lift to the boat, thus making it faster by reducing the drag of the hull when the boat was heeled and flying a hull. They were also made slimmer and longer, and this higher aspect ratio vastly improved the drag effects over a broader chord foil.  Then in 2005, Dutch composites expert and sailor, Pieterjan Dwarshuis, raced in the Worlds with a C shaped foil. This supplied much more lift and helped in getting the windward hull flying when going downwind – doing ‘the Wild Thing’ as it is known in cat circles.  And, as the leeward foil curved under the boat more, it produced much more lift as the angle of attack (Rake) could be adjusted also.  Result – particularly when combined with small winglets on the rudders was that the boats went faster. Within a couple of years these foils became more commonplace and by 2008 German sailor, Bob Baier, had won the European championships using a set. 

However, some feared that complex hydrofoils could possibly be fitted to the boat, rendering it fast but impractical and expensive.  So in 2009 a rule was brought in with the intention of preventing this hydrofoiling from happening.  The now famous ‘A’ class ‘Rule 8’ stating that all foils must be inserted from the top of the hull, and that there must be a minimum distance between the tips of the bottom of the boards of 75cm from the centreline.  That seemed to do the trick and for a few years things went along nicely.  But the foil building technology steadily improved and a consistent way was found of producing extremely strong shaped daggerboards from carbon composites. In 2013 the foils had developed from a C shape into a J shape and as a result of redesigned rudder winglets, positioning them at the bottom of the blade, the boats started leaping about like salmon. So the next logical move for this development class boat was obvious and was to make it fly. The boat has about the same power to weight ratio as a foiling Moth so it was assumed that it should be able to fly, but for one crucial potential problem – Rule 8.  This meant that conventional L shaped boards, similar to the AC boats foils, are not class legal.  But thinking around corners is what designers and sailors like to do and before long, designs for foils emerged that complied with the top insertion, limited span restrictions and provided enough lift to get the boat clear out of the water. A movable rake system allowed the angle of attack of the boards to be varied combined with fore and aft movements of the crew weight.  The real turning point came in 2014 before the Worlds in New Zealand. 

Many of the America’s Cup crews are also ‘A’ cat sailors.  In fact the most successful ‘A’ Class World Champion is the ETNZ skipper Glenn Ashby.  

The ETNZ America’s Cup team took delivery of half a dozen ‘A’ cats and set about with gusto seeing how far they could be pushed.  Improved, redesigned and strengthened boards and rudders started flying around the world on express carriers as they broke and re-broke the foils in an attempt to push the boat to it’s limits.  It worked and the boats started to fly, albeit in the hands of these sailing superstars, but techniques were discovered for getting the boats foiling for longer each time.   As a result of this, Glenn Ashby won yet another world title.  This paved the way for the current developments. 

Optimized designs, where daggerboard positions and beams are moved slightly, and newer, more stable foil sections that have lower drag are now arriving, with a Z and J/Z shaped board proving more stable when combined with T or L shaped rudder tips.  However, the holy grail of upwind foiling is still being worked on.  And this is all still done within the restrictions of Rule 8.  The top insert only rule has prevented earlier, more stable, and probably easier foiling to happen if an L shaped main foil were to be fitted.  However, the very fact that it is less stable probably results in a faster boat and the need to raise windward foil, as would be the case of the higher drag L foil, is unnecessary and something a single-handed sailor’s workload can do without.

Fast Rigs .

The ‘A’ class rules allow you to do anything as long as the total area, including the mast, does not exceed 150ft2.  This area has traditionally seen the greatest developments in the past.  Shape is entirely up to the sail maker based on mast shape and flexibility.  The original masts were flexible tapered affairs as still seen on the Unicorn today.  But in the early 1980s the ‘A’ class moved more towards an untapered wing type mast which was able to be rotated, somewhat like the leading edge slat on an aircraft wing, and thus create the sail shape more efficiently and to adjust it to cope with the windspeed changes created by the apparent wind.   Techniques developed and composite masts began to appear in Europe about 25 years ago.  The sails design paralleled the mast designs. 

Initially they were fully battened but conventionally tapered towards the head.   Then, in the mid 1980s the ‘Fat Head’ sail appeared on the ‘A’ cat for the first time.  This lower drag high-aspect ratio rig, much like a glider wing, allowed and helped the boat to fly a hull much earlier downwind with the resultant reduction in drag.  Upwind, powerful 12:1 downhaul and 9:1 mainsheet systems could flatten the sail and when the carbon mast arrived, this was even more efficiently achieved.  As the sail area is the determining factor, not the shape, variations were tried at various times.  Really ‘Fathead’ sails, with the heads at over 1000mm were the thing for a while.  These required the leech to be cut away in a concave manner to conform the area rule, but now the more popular ‘800’ head offers a good compromise of power and heeling moment. Rigid wing type rigs were also seen occasionally.  Back in 1978, at the European championships, a wing sail proved unbeatable in light winds.  More recently designers, such as the US mast maker and ‘A’ cat ace Ben Hall, have experimented with a wing sails.  But, their practical handling off the water still proving troublesome.

The most current sail development is the ‘Decksweeper’ sail.  This is a sail that uses the trampoline as the end plate, making it more efficient, similar to winglets seen on airliners.  The sail has its centre of effort lower down, and thus reduces the heeling force created by the fatter head sail and is ideal for a foiling design.  The byproduct of this is that going upwind, where any heeling force, above just flying a hull, is not wanted with either foil design, is that it feels like you have another gear.  Now much more of the power is pushing you forward.  And this is usually sufficient to compensate for the higher drag created by the more complex shaped foils with their higher surface area.  So, faster uphill, faster downhill, what’s not to like?  However, the downside is that when it’s not foiling conditions, the decksweeper is less powerful and thus the C board, or ‘Classic’ boat is still king.

The decksweeper was first tried on the ‘A’ cat in 1987 in Australia but proved to be unbeneficial compared with more conventional designs.  It was tried again a few years ago, by former World Champion Mischa Heemskerk, who was interested in exploring it again on a more modern boat design.  The trials were inconclusive and the project was shelved for a while.  Then 2015, in the search for more power but with less sideways pressure, as required by a foiling boat’s need to be sailed flatter, he reappeared with one at the 2015 Dutch Nationals and wiped the floor with everyone, including Glenn Ashby, who was there getting ready for the Worlds a few weeks later.  But you can’t keep that friendly little Aussie down for long.  When he arrived at the Worlds, he’d simply chopped one of his older sails down along the leech, and sewn an extra bit onto the bottom to reach the tramp.  This was enough to get him back on track speedwise, and in a variety of conditions, he managed to beat Heemskerk by an increasing margin each race to retail his World title.

Much design work was done over the winter of 2015/16 and two of the major manufacturers both produced more optimized designs.  The Polish Exploder came out with their Ad3, with a design input from the Spanish based D3 Applied Technologies design team.  The other was the Holland Composites DNA F1 design.  A radical looking boat with advanced aerodynamic features and a fully carbon fabric stiff trampoline.  Both designs have proved to be game changers and with little to choose from as regards performance.  Misch Heemskerk won the 2016 Worlds on the F1 with Darren Bundock 2nd on the Ad3.   Both designs foil earlier and are more stable when doing so making them easier to control.  It would appear that the design curve is starting to flatten out again now as regards hull and foil design with these two boats setting the standard of performance. 

The ‘A’ Class Future

The two foil types are causing a little debate within the class though.  Although all the boats measure as ‘A’ Class cats equally, the foiling/floating thing appears to irk some in a few national class associations.  Some want separate races for foilers, claiming that is not fair now to race both on the same course.  A movement to start a ‘Classic’ class of non-foiling boats has been suggested.  But, most associations simply prefer to split out the results and run a parallel results system.  And, at those lighter wind events, or in areas like Southern Germany, you don’t hear many complaints. 

New foiling boats arrive and older second hand straight or C board boats find ready new homes with some being converted to a foiling configuration with new foil cases and rudders, whilst others are sold to the encouraging number of new sailors entering the class.  This is often the best place to start, as it’s not actually a hard boat to sail initially. (The class has a minimum of 5kts and max. limit of 22 kts of wind for racing)  Beautifully fast and responsive yet without many of the unpleasant characteristics that some other cats will catch you out on, e.g. the long bows tend to reduce pitchpoling. The added benefit of being 75kg makes it really easy boat to handle ashore; a true single hander, the only thing where you might need someone else’s help for 2 minutes is with stepping the mast.

The next jump looks like it will be in rig design.  It’s open design rules means that it will continue to see innovation and development within its rules as yet more ways are found to make them go even faster. Their ability to be altered, modified and improved will also continue to see the ‘A’ cat being used as a test vehicle for design ideas on larger boats.  Who knows what is around the corner designwise, but the ‘A’ cat should be able to meet the challenge.

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Inside the Class: A Cats

• By Dave Reed
• Updated: February 19, 2017

If you want to geek out on high-tech singlehanded catamarans this week, the place to be is St. Petersburg, Florida’s tiny Spa Beach where nearly 40 A Class catamarans and their tweaking-obsessed owners have encamped for the Helly Hansen NOOD Regatta this weekend. Scattered across the grass park next to the beach are generations of these sexy high-performance catamarans, each of them on display like antique car show. Want to know more about any one of them? Just go ahead and ask. The cool cats love to talk cat sailing.

The divide among the newer “foilers” and “floaters” as the traditional A cats are now called, is almost equal here at the NOOD Regatta. Drawn to these singlehanders are like minded sailors that simply like to sail fast and challenge themselves with a platform that will reward no matter the condition require skill across all conditions.

This includes guys like Matthew Keenan, of Highlands, N.J., who joined the ranks of the foilers last year. While most A-cat sailors here likely cut their teeth as floaters, Keenan, who is winning the class after two days of racing, went straight to a foiler. “I did a lot of sailing in my earlier years (in the early 2000s) and then I kind of stopped,” says Keenan, a tugboat captain. “I went to school and did a lot of kiteboarding and then I saw that foiling developed and thought I need to get a piece of that.”

He picked up a second-hand foiling boat (new foilers can retail for $25,000 and up), and has been a quick study in the art of flight, which requires exhausting physical and mental stamina, especially when winds are light to marginal. When it’s windier, the foilers fly easier, but staying on the boat through high-speed maneuvers remains a constant battle. Capsizing, they’ll tell you is slow. Real slow.

Still, one of the most difficult aspects of racing in the mixed class can be going up against the classics, says Keenan. “Upwind everybody’s pretty much the same speed,” he says. “If the foilers can stay airborne and get going downwind they’re much faster and we can sail relatively the same angle downwind so we pull away pretty quickly. So upwind there about the same but downwind with foiling conditions we can pull away.”

When it’s marginal and choppy, however, it’s hard to get up the course against the floaters. They may be slower, he says, but “they have the best VMG over the course whereas we’re just reaching back and forth just trying to work the boat up on the foils. You can end up sailing in the totally wrong direction for a half mile before you realize it’s not going to pay.”

This absentmindedness and tendency to find oneself well overstood is due to the inadvertent mind control that takes over once aloft. It’s a mental condition described to me by one A Cat devotee this morning: “It’s just so damn fun, I find myself not caring at all about where I finish.”

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These are the last remaining US battleships, now serving as floating museums after modern warfare made them obsolete

• Touting large-caliber guns and torpedos, battleships carried intense firepower and heavy armor.
• With the advancement of military technology, the need for battleships dwindled.
• There are only eight US battleships still afloat, now converted into museum ships.

Having large, heavily armored warships was a tactical advantage in the 20th Century.

But as military technology and weaponry advanced, battleships became obsolete. Battleships were the apex of power in the era when gun battles dominated naval fights, and they still proved useful for decades in firing retrofitted missiles and hammering enemy coasts with guns. Each 16-inch gun could fire a round that weighed around 2,000 pounds.

Less than a dozen battleships are still afloat in the world — eight of which once belonged to the US Navy — now serving as museum ships honoring the historic battles they served in.

USS New Jersey

First launched in December 1942, USS New Jersey , an Iowa-class battleship, earned more battle stars than any other US battleship in history.

Nicknamed "Big J," the New Jersey served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, during which it was the only battleship to be reactivated.

The warship was decommissioned for the last time in 1991, entering the reserve fleet while the details of converting it into a museum ship were being ironed out. In 1999, Congress allowed Big J, under the management of nonprofit Home Port Alliance, to be turned into a museum ship.

Since 2000, Big J has been moored across the channel from USS Olympia, but the museum ship is back on the move for the first time in decades.

On March 20, the New Jersey was moved from its dock in Camden, New Jersey, heading for the Philadelphia Navy Yard for maintenance work.

First launched in May 1912, USS Texas was the oldest battleship afloat in the United States and the last surviving dreadnought in the world.

The New York-class battleship served in both World Wars, undergoing a major overhaul during the interwar period. It was fitted with 14-inch guns and could strike targets up to 13 miles away.

The Texas was decommissioned in 1947 and became the first permanent museum battleship in the US, owned by the people of Texas and administered by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. In August 2022, the ship was towed to Gulf Copper Dry Dock and Rig Repair in Galveston, Texas, to undergo extensive repairs costing more than $20 million.

Earlier this month, the museum ship moved from the dry dock to a nearby wet berth , but more work on the ship's topside is still underway. The ship is set to reopen to the public by the end of next year, the Battleship Texas Foundation said.

USS Massachusetts

The sixth ship to bear the name of the state, USS Massachusetts was known for firing the first and last 16-inch shells of World War II. At 680 feet long, the warship was powered by four steam turbines, giving it a top speed of nearly 28 knots, and could carry three Kingfisher floatplanes.

First launched in September 1941, the South Dakota-class battleship, affectionately dubbed "Big Mamie" by its crew, was armed with nine 16-inch 45-caliber guns, 20 5-inch, 38-caliber dual-purpose guns, and an antiaircraft battery of Bofors guns and Oerlikon autocannon.

The Massachusetts made one of the longest-range gunfire hits against a moving enemy target at a range of 28,000 yards. During the Battle of Casablanca, Big Mamie fired at the French destroyer Milan serving with the naval forces of Vichy — the government that collaborated with Nazi Germany after France's fall — which was fighting to defend French territory near north Africa.

The ship was decommissioned in 1947 and stripped of 5,000 tons of equipment to be used for other naval vessels. At the request of Massachusetts citizens, Big Mamie was donated to the state in 1965 instead of heading to a scrapyard.

Located in Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts, the warship is considered the most unaltered battleship in the world.

USS Alabama

USS Alabama, a South Dakota-class battleship, was launched in 1942 after the US entered World War II. At the height of WWII, the 680-foot warship had a crew of 2,500 members and was the only American ship to be honored by the Soviet Union.

The Alabama's active service was short-lived after the US Navy found it had a surplus of ships following the end of the war, and it entered the Navy's reserve fleet just five years after launching.

Twenty years later, the vessel was struck from the roster in 1962 and destined for the scrapyard until Alabama residents began a campaign to save the ship. The battleship was awarded to the state and preserved by the nonprofit organization, the USS Alabama Battleship Foundation. The ship is permanently moored in Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama.

USS Wisconsin

USS Wisconsin , an Iowa-class battleship, was the second-to-last battleship built by the US and the last battleship to ever fire in combat.

Called "the Wisky" by its crew, the warship served in the Pacific during World War II, later spending a year as a training ship after Japan formally surrendered. It was one of the first ships to be reactivated for the Korean War.

In 1958, the Wisky reentered the reserves for three decades before being recommissioned to participate in the Persian Gulf War. As part of Reagan's naval initiative, the ship was refitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles and drone-based technology.

It was officially decommissioned in 1991 but was chosen to remain battle-ready for emergency situations. In 2006, the Wisky was determined to be too old to modernize and is now permanently moored as a museum battleship in Norfolk, Virginia, which officially owns the vessel since 2010.

USS Missouri

Commissioned in 1944, USS Missouri , nicknamed "Mighty Mo," was the last — and the largest — battleship built for the US Navy.

Might Mo survived the downsizing of the Navy's fleet in the late 1940s, remaining in active service as the only commissioned battleship from 1947 to 1950 at the order of President Harry S. Truman.

In 1955, the Missouri entered the "mothball fleet" and was moored in the naval yard in Bremerton, Washington, open to the public until being reactivated with the rest of the Iowa class in the 1980s.

It was finally decommissioned in 1992 and donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association. The ship was towed to Pearl Harbor in 1998, moored less than 500 yards behind the sunken battleship, USS Arizona.

USS North Carolina

The lead ship in its class, USS North Carolina was the first battleship built by the US in nearly two decades — and one of the last battleships ever created.

First launching on June 13, 1940, it was the newest battleship in the US Navy by the time the US entered World War II. The ship measured 728 feet. Its sleek design at the time gave the North Carolina an edge over dreadnought-era warships, making it faster and more maneuverable, reaching speeds of 28 knots.

The North Carolina was fitted with 29 large-caliber guns and several 40 mm and 20 mm antiaircraft guns.

In the 1960s, the ship was placed on the chopping block after the Navy decided only to keep Iowa-class ships in its fleet. The North Carolina was donated to the state and towed to its final resting spot on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, North Carolina, where it remains open to the public.

USS Iowa, the lead ship in its class , was the last battleship to leave the US Navy. First launched in 1943, the 887-foot battleship was one of four battleships built by the US and was the longest-serving battleship in the Navy's history.

After World War II, the Iowa was briefly decommissioned and added to the reserve fleet before being reactivated during the Korean War. Following the end of the war, the ship reentered the reserves for 24 years.

In the 1980s, the ship was selected for an extensive refitting under President Ronald Reagan's Naval Expansion Initiative. The vessel's antiaircraft guns and secondary batteries were removed and refitted with ballistic missiles.

But in 1989, a massive explosion occurred inside one of the Iowa's turrets, killing 47 crewmen and severely damaging the ship. The blast led to its final decommissioning in 1990.

The ship was officially struck from the roster in 2006, remaining in cold layup until it was donated as a museum ship in 2011. The Iowa left the Navy in 2012. Now operated by the nonprofit, Pacific Battleship Center, the vessel is permanently moored at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, California.

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