Captain Jed:Your measurement at ships present location is close to the official Smoots listed by USN for this vessel, and this is standard length in Smoots for Iowa class Battleships. I am at work with no access to EV so I can't look at your "Flying Dutchman". However, it is quite possible that during refitting the "New Jersey" had to lose a few Smoots for contruction purposes, and then these smoots were replaced after the original photo.
Also, considering it's the Navy, it is likely that the Smoot standard, a la MIT, was misapplied by the bureaucracy, which did not go back to the standard post Viet Nam Smoot
as a reference when converting old ships to dockside museums!
-------------------- There are none so blind......