My best adventure yet!!

[seapuppy]

Got a long story and I hope I don't bore you too much
but as many know I used to design nuke subs, (too which I am extremely proud of) and one of the class of boats I worked on (along with 600 other fine designers and engineers) was the SSN21 Class of subs. The class consists of:
SSN21 USS Seawolf
SSN22 USS Connecticut
SSN23 USS Jimmy Carter (don't get me started on this one)

Anyways a few weeks ago, a buddy of mine told me his nephew was stationed on the 22 boat and had offered to give us a tour of the boat since it was in port for an SRA(Selected records availability)
well...as you could guess..I jumped at the chance to tour the boat....
so this morning I woke up early (like I could sleep thinking about it all).....grabbed a shower and quietly dressed as not to wake up marsha...got into the car and headed to seattle to take the bremerton/seattle ferry across the sound to bremerton....drove to Jordan's house where he was ready to go...by now it's about 09:30 am and off we go to Puget sound Naval shipyard where we parked and walked to the pier..

at this point i have to say that I was about to jump out of my skin since I spent from 1988 to 1995 in the detail design of the boat....and here it is!!...I'm finally able to see what we worked on..sweated over....worked tons and tons of OT to produce the first submarine for the United States Navy to ever be designed on computer....and...to counter totally the (at the time) Soviet Union submarine threats...
.
She's big...40 ft in diameter....295 ft long....8 ea. 40in dia. torpedo tubes..speed in excess of 25kts....depth ..classified...but FRIGGIN deep!!...

Jordan is a brilliant young man....married to a lovely wife and extremely proud of the service he provides in the US Navy....
he's a reactor plant operator and extremely bright young man....it was an honor to meet him, and get to know him...I'm extremely impressed with the men of the boat...
and after talking to some ....they are impressed and appreciative of the work we all did to design and build such a wonderful machine....
I got to the areas I worked in...got to touch the parts that were in the computer and wondered if it would work or not.....talk about a chance of a life time...
these are 3 pic's I could take as anything inside the boat is fairly classified....as much as I wanted to have one of me inside...best I could do is outside...of course I understand the reason.....but it still disappointed me some....but at least I got to see the elusive submarine I only saw from a distance!!...



me in front of the Sail


The Sail with all the maintenance scaffolding...looks worse than it is..


The boat with all the maintenance stuff going on..divers over the side..etc...
Steve

[iceman]

Not boring at all, great story Steve! What a great opportunity. This summer I got to tour the USS Midway down in San Diego, and the USS Hornet here in Alameda. I wasn't involved in the design, but they were impressive nonetheless. If I could fit a "Dead Reckoning Tracer" on my Maxum, I would!

[ss3964spd]

Good story indeed, Steve, thanks for sharing it and the pictures!

I can completely relate to seeing the tangible results of one's hard work - something I never see in my line of work. Probably explains why I under takeas many home projects as I do - love to see the results.

Regards,

Dan

[seapuppy]

thanks for the kind words guys.....my dad was stationed on the Hornet many many MANY yrs ago....I'd love to see that one....

yep..in engineering your usually stuck to a computer screen or drawings all day and never get to see the product....
when I was asked to come visit..I had to think for all of about a nano-second before I jumped out of the chair.....bout scared the crap outa my wife.!!..haha

SP