USS Skate (SSN-578)

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USS Skate (SSN-578)
period of service USN Jack
Ordered: July 18, 1955
Keel laying: July 21, 1955
Launch: May 16, 1957
Commissioning: December 23, 1957
Decommissioning: September 12, 1986
Fate: Canceled
Technical specifications
Displacement: 2850 tons submerged
Power: 20 knots / 25 knots
Length: 81.5 meters
Width: 7.6 meters
Draft: 6.5 meters
Drive: One S4W pressurized water reactor, two shafts
Crew: 95

The USS Skate (SSN-578) was a nuclear-powered submarine of the United States Navy . She was the type ship of the skate class . The boat and with it the class were named after the real rays , English skate .

history

SSN-578 was commissioned on July 18, 1955 as the first series production of a nuclear submarine for the US Navy. Just three days later the keel of the boat was laid at Electric Boat . On May 16, 1957, the boat was launched and was christened. The boat was officially put into service at the end of the year.

USS Skate at the North Pole
Visit by USS Skate in the port of Rotterdam

As early as February 1958, the skate began its first mission and called at ports in England, France and the Netherlands. In the summer of that year, the submarine operated under the Arctic ice cap and surfaced through Arctic ice nine times. After the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) , the Skate was the second ship to reach the North Pole and the first submarine to appear here. In 1959 she made another trip to the Arctic, during which she scattered the ashes of polar explorer Hubert Wilkins in a solemn ceremony at the North Pole , who in 1931 was the first to attempt to reach the pole in a submarine. In 1961 the first replenishment of nuclear fuel and an overhaul in the shipyard took place.

In 1962, the skate operated under the ice with her sister ship USS Seadragon (SSN-584) for a week and surfaced with her at the North Pole. Local operations were on the agenda until 1965, when the reactor was refilled and SUBSAFE was carried out at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard . The Skate was the first submarine to complete this certification, introduced after losing the USS Thresher (SSN-593) in September 1967.

In 1968 the skate sailed the Mediterranean Sea, in 1969, 1970 and 1971 also Arctic waters again. The third overhaul followed in July 1971, again in the Norfolk NSY, which lasted until the end of 1973.

In 1986 the skate was decommissioned and canceled in the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard .

Web links

Individual evidence

Commons : USS Skate (SSN-578)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files
  1. news.orf.at: Hubert Wilkins, researcher adventurer and pilot accessed on November 11, 2011