The Big Stick

This is the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the American aircraft carrier named after a former US President, which is on a courtesy visit to the South Coast, but is too big to get into the naval port at Portsmouth.
 
It weighs in at 100,000 tonnes, carries more than 80 combat aircraft, and has a crew of 5,226. But unable to get into the naval port is anchored in the Solent at Nearby Gosport’s Stokes Bay, and is providing something of a tourist spectacle.
 
It was mid morning when I visited and though the sun was out, it was unfortunately in the wrong place at that time for good photography from the shore.
 
But that wasn’t putting off the scores of spectators on the shore line even at that time of morning, and the fourth day she has been there.
 
The Royal Navy’s own new class of aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth,  is not due into service for another two years but will be a minnow in size, compared to this one.
 

The flight deck alone of the USS Roosevelt is 4.5 acres.  Small wonder they call it affectionately, The Big Stick.