US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise: A 40-Foot Gash, 24 Fuel Tanks Lost, $17 Million in Damage, and the Hazard Was Already on the Chart.

US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise: A 40-Foot Gash, 24 Fuel Tanks Lost, $17 Million in Damage, and the Hazard Was Already on the Chart.

On November 2, 1985, the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier struck Bishop Rock at Cortes Bank, about a hundred miles from San Diego. Contemporary reporting described a 40-foot gash in the outer hull and a bent port bilge keel; the Navy's own history records flooding, a damaged screw and the temporary loss of 24 aviation-fuel tanks. Nobody was hurt. The detail that matters is what was underneath: Bishop Rock is charted, marked with a …