USS Cole underwater hull repair

Underwater welding case study illustrating the wet-welding repair scenario at shallow depth. Tom uses it to make the point that capital ships are repaired rather than scrapped for political/strategic reasons even when economically irrational.

For example, was it the Cole that had the big hole in it? We didn't want the terrorists out there in the Gulf to think they had destroyed a U.S. capital ship, so they actually went in and they had to do underwater welding. It wasn't very deep — just down to the keel beam. And they towed it back and repaired it. They could have bought a new ship for less. They wanted to prove that some terrorists with a motor launch didn't destroy a U.S. capital ship. So they repaired it, but it was an expensive repair. They couldn't have even gotten it back — just the seas would have torn it apart; the damage was severe enough they had to have some weld repairs before they could even tow it back to the U.S.