One of the largest aircraft carriers in the world is to visit the Solent this weekend and will be on clear view to Islanders for 5 days, as it’s too big to enter Portsmouth Harbour.
The 100,000-ton US Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt will arrive in our waters tomorrow (Sunday) before mooring up between Gosport and Ryde off Stokes Bay. Islanders should be granted a great view of the 1092ft long vessel from vantage points such as Ryde Pier.
Some 5,226 crew members are on board and all have been granted shore leave, meaning the city of Portsmouth is gearing up for an influx of visitors – especially on the nightclub scene.
The visit forms parts of an ongoing partnership between the Royal Navy and US on carrier operations until the first of the new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, enters service in 2017.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt will be accompanied by its escort ship, the destroyer USS Winston S Churchill and should arrive in the Solent by late afternoon.
In 2011 similar scenes were seen in the Solent when USS George Bush, a near identical ship, moored up off Gosport.
