Construction and Trials
Nevada's construction was authorized by an Act of Congress on 4 March 1911. The contract went to Fore River Shipbuilding Company on 22 January 1912 for a total of $5,895,000 (not including the armor and armament), and the time of construction was originally to be 36 months. A secondary contract was signed on 31 July 1912 for $50,000 to cover the additional cost of a geared cruising unit on each propeller shaft; this also extended the planned construction time by five months. Her keel was laid down on 4 November 1912, and by 12 August 1914, the ship was 72.4% complete. Nevada was launched on 11 July 1914; she was sponsored by Miss Eleanor Anne Seibert, niece of Governor Tasker Oddie of Nevada and a descendant of the first Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Stoddert. The launch was attended by several prominent members of the government, including Governor Oddie, Governor David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would later become the 32nd President of the United States.
Nevada then had to undergo many different tests and trials prior to her commissioning to ensure that she met the terms of the original contract. These began on 4 November 1915, when the ship conducted a twelve-hour endurance run "up and down the New England coast", reaching a top speed of 21.4 kn (24.6 mph; 39.6 km/h). Though her "acceptance trials" were interrupted on 5 November because of a gale and rough seas, they were continued on the 6th with a test of her fuel economy; this consisted of a 24-hour run where Nevada steamed at 10 kn (12 mph; 19 km/h). The test results were positive: the oil consumption of the battlewagon was 6 lb per knot lower than the contract had demanded. Another test was conducted for 12 hours at 15 kn (17 mph; 28 km/h), with an even better result of 10 lb per knot lower than the contract specifications. After completing all of these tests and running trials off Rockland, Maine, Nevada sailed to the Boston and New York Navy Yards for equipment, torpedo tubes and ammunition hoists. When all of the preliminaries were completed, Nevada was commissioned on 11 March 1916 at the Charlestown Navy Yard, and William S. Sims was the first captain of the new ship.
Read more about this topic: USS Nevada (BB-36)
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