Workers cut off 35 feet from the battleship New Jersey's main mast and shortened several smaller masts Tuesday in preparation for its trip under the Walt Whitman Bridge Thursday on its final journey home to its namesake state.

The ship will leave the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard between 8 and 9 a.m. It is scheduled to dock between 10 and 11 a.m. at a temporary berth at the Beckett Street Marine Terminal of the South Jersey Port Corp., near Spruce Street.

The best sites to see the ship's trip will be at the old League Island Ferry area on Soupy Island in Na tional Park, Proprietor's Park in Gloucester City, Wiggins Water front Park behind the E-Centre in Camden and the southern end of Penn's Landing in Philadelphia.

The ship is to be moved in August to the port corporation's Broadway terminal for renovations and will eventually rest behind the nearby E-Centre as a floating museum in late 2001.