USS Key West (SSN-722)

6300 tons surfaced, 7100 tons submerged

110.3 m

10 m

9.7 m

12 officers, 115 teams

A S6G reactor

30 nodes

The USS Key West ( SSN -722 ) is a nuclear submarine of the United States Navy and is part of the Los Angeles- class. It is named after the city of Key West, Florida.

History

The contract for the Key West 1981 awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding where the keel of the boat was laid in July 1983. After a construction period of two years, the boat was launched, commissioned into the United States Navy took place on 12 September 1987. Home port was Norfolk, Virginia.

After tests and certifications took place in 1989, the first installation of the boat in the eastern Atlantic instead of 1990 then also into the Mediterranean. In the following years the Key West took part in emergency operations in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. In 1995 she took part in the conflict resolution in Yugoslavia, while it was part of the battle group to the USS Theodore Roosevelt ( CVN -71). Later, the Key West then drove through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the Arabian Gulf.

1996 got off the boat and its home port was assigned to the Pacific Fleet, new homeport Pearl Harbor was in Hawaii. The first relocation from Hawaii began in April 1997 when the Key West rode the USS Constellation ( CV-64 ) in the western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. In spring 1998, the boat then took tests with the carriers USS Carl Vinson (CVN -70) and USS Abraham Lincoln ( CVN -72), in the summer in the exercise RIMPAC 98 part. The rest of the year spent in the boat exercises with the Republic of Korea Navy.

In 2006, the Key West was part of RIMPAC 2007 she went under the Valiant Shield exercise off the coast of Guam, in 2008 then again in RIMPAC off Hawaii. In 2009, the submarine participated in an exercise with the navies of Japan and Australia.