USS Skate (SSN-578)

The USS Skate ( SSN -578 ) was a nuclear submarine of the United States Navy. She was the lead ship of the Skate class. The boat and the class were named after the genuine skate, skate English.

History

SSN -578 was commissioned on 18 July 1955 as the first series production of a nuclear submarine in the U.S. Navy in order. Only three days later, the keel of the boat was placed at Electric Boat. On 16 May 1957, the boat was launched and was baptized. End of the year the boat was officially put into service.

In February 1958, the skate began her first deployment ride and ran ports in England, France and the Netherlands. In the summer of the submarine was operating under the Arctic ice cap and dipped nine times through Arctic ice. After the USS Nautilus (SSN -571 ), the Skate was the second ship, which reached the North Pole and the first U- boat that surfaced here. In 1959 she made ​​another Arctic trip on which they in a solemn ceremony, the ashes of the polar explorer Hubert Wilkins scattered at the North Pole, who in 1931 made ​​the first attempt to reach the Pole in a submarine. In 1961, the first replenishment of the nuclear fuel and an overhaul in the shipyard.

1962 operated skate for a week with her sister ship USS Seadragon (SSN -584 ) under the ice and appeared with her at the North Pole. Until 1965, local operations were, then followed in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the refilling of the reactor and the implementation of SUBSAFE. The skate was the first submarine, which ended this introduced after the loss of the USS Thresher (SSN -593 ) certification in September 1967.

1968 Skate sailed the Mediterranean, 1969, 1970 and 1971 also re- Arctic waters. In July 1971 was followed by the third overhaul, back in Norfolk ABY, which lasted until the end of 1973.

In 1986, the Skate was decommissioned and broken in the Ship- Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.