In modern

amphibious warfare Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conduc ...

usage, a well dock or well deck, officially termed a wet well during U.S. Navy instruction when the well deck is flooded for operations, is a hangar-like deck located at the

waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. A waterline can also refer to any line on a ship's hull that is parallel to the water's surface when the ship is afloat in a level trimmed position. Hence, wate ...

in the stern of some amphibious warfare ships. By taking on water the ship can lower its stern, flooding the well deck and allowing vessels such as boats and

landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. ...

amphibious vehicle An amphibious vehicle (or simply amphibian) is a vehicle that works both on land and on or under water. Amphibious vehicles include amphibious Amphibious cycle, bicycles, Amphibious ATV, ATVs, Amphibious automobile, cars, Duckboats, buses, truc ...

s, and recovered spacecraft crew capsules to dock within the ship.

Evolution of structure and term

The structure on the modern naval amphibious ships does not exactly fit the traditional "

well deck In traditional nautical use, well decks were decks lower than decks fore and aft, usually at the main deck level, so that breaks appear in the main deck profile, as opposed to a flush deck profile. The term goes back to the days of sail. Late-2 ...

" definition of a weather, or open deck, that is lower than adjacent decks, surrounded by bulkheads that would, lacking proper drainage, form a catchment for water; however, the structure has its origins in such an exaggerated deep deck on World War II-era tank landing craft (TLC) the British forces were considering. On July 19, 1941, Major R. E. Holloway, Royal Engineers, forwarded a design from a 1924 patent by Otto Popper of the Danube International Commission concerning a barge transporter for

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

barges. That evolved into the British TLC-C that would become the Dock Landing Ship (LSD) that had an open, very deep and special-purpose well deck open to the elements and thus technically a "well deck" in the traditional definition. The open well deck began to see covering in part with platforms, particularly helicopter landing platforms, and in most modern form is no longer a weather deck, being completely enclosed overhead. The structure is seen in ships with a substantial air assault role such as the . Landing craft on well deck HMAS Canberra

Landing craft on well deck HMAS Canberra

The term "well deck" is still used for the newer structure in the U.S. Navy, while other naval usage appears to be more commonly "well dock" that more clearly separates traditional usage from modern naval function.

Non-military application

Some commercial vessels have similar structures for purposes similar to the military versions. The German Baco Liner ships use bow doors. Previous barge carriers were of similar design to the military ships with a large stern well deck. The increased use of containers and container port facilities has decreased the use of this type of commercial vessel, with their main use serving regions with less well developed ports. During the testing program for NASA's

Orion spacecraft Orion (Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin that is paired with a Eu ...

, in 2013 and 2014 and used their well decks to recover Orion capsules after

splashdown Splashdown is the method of landing a spacecraft or launch vehicle in a body of water, usually by parachute. This has been the primary recovery method of American capsules including NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Orion along with th ...

. Earlier capsules such as Gemini and

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

had to be lifted aboard their recovery vessels by crane. was assigned as the recovery ship for the Orion capsule of the

Artemis 1 Artemis I, formerly Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), was an uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission that was launched in November 2022. As the first major spaceflight of NASA's Artemis program, Artemis I marked the agency's return to lunar exploration a ...

uncrewed Moon-orbiting mission, successfully completed on 11 December 2022. The spacecraft's Orion capsule was floated into the flooded well deck at the stern of the vessel off the coast of

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

References

External links

{{Commons category, Well decks
USS ''Mesa Verde'' (LPD-19) (Illustrative photos at NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive
Shipbuilding Nautical terminology Ship compartments

Evolution of structure and term

Non-military application

See also

References

External links