{"id":71200,"date":"2017-10-31T04:54:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T11:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71200"},"modified":"2017-10-31T04:55:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T11:55:54","slug":"us-aircraft-carriers-in-sri-lanka-and-what-we-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/10\/31\/us-aircraft-carriers-in-sri-lanka-and-what-we-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"US AIRCRAFT CARRIERS IN SRI LANKA AND WHAT WE LOST"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Quote from US embassy <\/strong><\/p>\n

It is estimated that the carrier strike group will add approximately 1.54 billion rupees ($10 million USD) to the Sri Lankan economy as the ships purchase supplies and thousands of U.S. sailors come ashore and support local businesses.\u00a0\u00a0During the visit, sailors will have opportunities to explore the local community and meet with their counterparts in the Sri Lankan Navy.\u00a0\u00a0While in port, sailors will also work with local non-profit organizations to support community service events at a local hospital, an orphanage, and other sites<\/em><\/p>\n

The USS\u00a0Nimitz is more than 23 stories high from the keel to the top of the mast and is approximately 333 meters long.\u00a0\u00a0It can accommodate more than 5,000 personnel, with its kitchens providing more than 18,000 meals each day.\u00a0\u00a0It produces 1.5 million liters of fresh water daily and its two barber shops give 1,500 haircuts each week.\u00a0\u00a0The USS Nimitz\u2019s home port is in the state of Washington<\/p>\n

Unquote <\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more <\/strong><\/p>\n

https:\/\/lk.usembassy.gov\/uss-nimitz-visit-sri-lanka-first-u-s-aircraft-carrier-since-1985\/<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

American air craft carrier visited Sri Lanka on a good will visit .Air craft carrier Nimitz came and left with over 2500 sailors on board,This is equivalent to about a month\u2019s tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka .Our shipping agents and tourist agents \u00a0and Sri Lanka with tourist board have missed\u00a0 the bus\u201d ( ship),in exploiting to get the sailors land in Colombo soil. Government ,defence ministry ,tourist board ,SLPA have miserably failed to attract the business .<\/p>\n

They asked for some barges \u00a0( flat steel landing platform) to be deployed by the mammoth hull of the air craft carrier which had an odd shape .Barge or a transport boat could not \u00a0do mooring by the side of the hull during rough weather as they will hit the hull of the ship.One barge deployed by a well-known contractor\u00a0 in the port with a very high superstructure ( control room on the barge) \u00a0could not reach the ship because it was hitting the upper part of convex shaped hull .Then the contractor hurried to chop off the top part of the super structure and tried few times. They needed some Yokohama Fenders\u00a0 (1 m diameter rubber balloons with tyres wrapped around with steel chains ) were not available in Colombo hence transport barge could not moor the alongside the vessel .All avenues failed to bring single sailor to Sri Lankan spoil and the ship left Sri Lanka.Shipping agents were running around like hungry wolves trying to get the contract to bring sialors to Colombo but failed because of\u00a0 fighting ! Barge owners were trying to charge over 10,000 $ for one operation !<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our stupid politicians were talking about American Invasion and JVP protesting against Americas claiming that they are \u00a0trying to invade ,but none of them have little brain to fathom that we lost over 1 million Dollars of income to Sri Lanka ,If the sailors manged to come on shore ,they would have enjoyed few days and spend much money in Sri lankan hotels .clubs,super malls \u00a0and our small time businesses would have flourished.<\/p>\n

Another interesting thing is Sri Lankan Navy was not even consulted in this operation due to the fact that these Americans thought that our Navy may look closely at their ship and copy the shape if they come close !!!!!!!!!!! .<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am sure that our Navy would have found a way to bring them on shore with a professional approach and make them spend money in Colombo .<\/p>\n

Problem we have is that no one in this country has any forward thinking to find ways to generate avenues to earn money for the depleting economy .<\/p>\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera Quote from US embassy It is estimated that the carrier strike group will add approximately 1.54 billion rupees ($10 million USD) to the Sri Lankan economy as the ships purchase supplies and thousands of U.S. sailors come ashore and support local businesses.\u00a0\u00a0During the visit, sailors will have opportunities to explore the local […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}