NS Savannah

The Savannah at sea

The Nuclear Ship Savannah was the first merchant ship and after the icebreaker Lenin, the second civilian ship at all, which had a nuclear propulsion.

The ship was commissioned in the 1950s by the U.S. government and is ran on July 21, 1959 in Camden, New Jersey, near New York Shipbuilding from the stack. The Savannah was finally in August 1962 in service and operated on behalf of the United States Maritime Commision by the shipping company American Export and Isbrandtsen Lines. It was powered by a pressurized water reactor of the Babcock & Wilcox, who provided the steam for the 22,000 HP ( maximum power ) powered turbines. For emergency operation of two diesel generators were available.

The Savannah was indeed designed as a combined cargo and passenger ship, but the testing of the nuclear engine in mind. Therefore, economic operation was not possible, and in 1970 the ship was decommissioned. Until then, the Savannah had covered 480,000 miles. After that, she was a museum ship, before the reactor was removed in the 1990s. Since 2006, the Savannah is in Newport News, Virginia overhauled.

The Ministry of Interior of the United States, the Savannah is now classified as a National Historic Landmark. The ship had cost a total of $ 46.9 million ( $ 18.6 million for the ship and $ 28.3 million for reactor and fuel).