Tomorrow the NR-1 will be officially inactivated at a ceremony in GRoton, CT. DH flies up there today and will be there for the crew reunion activities over the weekend. I imagine one of us will post pictures Saturday night when he returns home.

She has served long and well, everything from scientific research, to recovering pieces of the challenger, to projects that only the crew and a handful of others know about.

From "THe day"

Groton -- The departure of the NR-1, said retired Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, “clearly leaves a hole in the Navy.”


The Naval Research Vessel (NR-1), the Navy’s only nuclear-powered, deep-diving ocean engineering and research submarine, was inactivated Friday after almost 40 years in service.
Giambastiani, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the officer in charge on NR-1 in the early 1980s.


He was the keynote speaker in Friday's ceremony, which drew high-ranking military leaders, politicians and former crew members to the Naval Submarine Base to say goodbye.


Although most of its work in the ocean depths involves assignments that the Navy does not discuss, some of NR-1’s high-profile missions include retrieving pieces of the space shuttle Challenger when it blew up after takeoff in 1986 and the engines from Egyptair Flight 990 when it crashed off the coast of New England in 1999.


NR-1 has searched for shipwrecks around the world, including an Israeli submarine that vanished in 1968. Its crew worked with Robert Ballard, founder and president of the Institute For Exploration at the Mystic Aquarium, to search for evidence of early Native American settlements now under water.


On its final deployment, the crew helped a local foundation look for the wreck of John Paul Jones’ Revolutionary War ship,Bonhomme Richard.


“While NR-1 will no longer probe the ocean depths, she has a legacy of excellence that lives on,” said Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion.


Cmdr. John P. McGrath, the officer in charge, spent 30 months underwater on the NR-1 during his current tour and his previous tour as the engineer officer.


“They were the most thrilling, challenging, terrifying and personally rewarding moments of my career, and sometimes all at the same time,” he said. “If I live to be 100, I know I’ll think daily about how lucky I was to play a small part in the life of this ship and this chapter of our Navy’s history.”

As far as pictures, the boat will be sending us a CD...as luck would have it, the airline lost the bag on the way to Providence with the camera AND uniform inside, and it was delivered to his hotel AFTER the ceremony.

Too bad her highest ranking crewmember couldn't/didn't make it to her deactavation.

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter Never Served on her. He actually never made it to Nuke boats at all, served on diesels was selected for nuke, but resigned his comission (1953) while in the pipeline. He was out of the Navy before the Nautilus was comissioned...Way before the NR-1 was activated.

WHERE'S THE AVITAR ?

wish i could have gone, i had duty and getting ready to undock my boat this weekend. would have been fun (and right down the road)

quote:

Originally posted by ETCPJ:
Too bad her highest ranking crewmember couldn't/didn't make it to her deactavation.

He did actually, ADM (ret) Giambastiani. It's pretty humbling to think you've used the same toilet, shower, and rack as this man. A few of the guests even pointed out that they had seen him naked. But I digress.... It was quite a ceremony, wouldn't have missed it for the world.

NR1 was not without controversy, as it was being built while the Scorpion was in EB for overhaul. At the time there was considerable grousing among the Scorpion crew that monies for their overhaul were cut to pay for the NR1. The truth of the finances is beyond my knowledge, and even if it is true nothing can be changed now. It is just another example of trade offs made when either-or situations come up.
I was in Nuke school and prototype with an ET that was discovered to be color blind, forced to become an MM near the end of prototype, stayed on for ELT training and was sent to NR1. Smart guy, to say the least. Wish I could remember his name.

BZ to all of the NR1 crews.

chuck petterson
former MM1(SS)
Plankowner, SSN 661
President, USS Lapon Association

I just found this, dont know why I didnt notice it before. Saw pics of her sail cut off from one of her final crew members as well. She was turned over entirely and her crew released in July.

Historic research sub returns home in pieces
Deep-diving NR-1 back in Groton after 40-year career

By Jennifer Grogan Published on 5/9/2009



Jeff Victoria, top, and Rick Boguzes, riggers from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, connect straps to the main section of the sail of the research sub NR-1 on Friday.

Groton - The last time the research submarine NR-1 returned to Groton, it came up the Thames River with the crew standing on the sail.
On Friday, pieces of NR-1 returned to Groton strapped to a flatbed truck.

The crowd that gathered to greet the NR-1 Friday was smaller than in July, when the crew completed its final deployment, but enthusiastic.

”I'm ecstatic,” Michael Riegel, executive director of the Submarine Force Library and Museum Association, said while watching the unloading with others from the museum and the Historic Ship Nautilus. “But it's kind of sad in a way. This is a statement of finality. Here are the pieces of it, it doesn't exist as a ship anymore.”

After a 40-year career, the Groton-based Naval Research Vessel (NR-1), the Navy's only nuclear-powered, deep-diving ocean engineering and research submarine, was taken out of service in November 2008 and sent to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for fuel removal.

Later this year it will go to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington, where the nuclear reactor will be removed and it will be dismantled. The pieces are usually recycled or buried at a nuclear reservation.

But a group of NR-1 supporters, led by members of the museum association, have been lobbying the Navy to get the submarine back in Groton once the reactor is removed to display it at the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum and preserve the unique submarine's history.

Some of NR-1's high-profile missions included retrieving pieces of the space shuttle Challenger when it blew up after launch in 1986 and recovering the engines from Egyptair Flight 990 after it crashed off the coast of New England in 1999.

On its final deployment, the crew helped a local foundation look for the wreck of John Paul Jones' Revolutionary War ship the Bonhomme Richard.

The main part of the sail, another piece of the sail, rudder and propellers arrived in the museum parking lot Friday morning.

Additional shipments of pieces and equipment will follow in the coming weeks, but the Navy has not yet told the museum whether it will get the entire ship, minus the reactor.

”This is a down payment,” Riegel said Friday. “We still want the rest of the ship.”

Public works employees from the Naval Submarine Base used a forklift to unload the smaller items Friday and a crane to lift the distinctive orange sail and lower it into a fenced-in area of the parking lot.

Museum curator Steve Finnigan said these artifacts will eventually be displayed outside, somewhere on the museum grounds. If the Navy gives the museum the entire ship, or a large section of it, an addition to the museum would be needed, he added. The museum is already home to the USS Nautilus (SSN 571), the world's first nuclear-powered submarine.

In an April letter to U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said the Navy is preparing the reactor compartment for disposal in 2015 and it would cost more to preserve parts of the ship for display. But he did not rule out the possibility.

Courtney, D-2nd District, was optimistic Friday, saying that the effort by local stakeholders and his office has “really gotten through to the Navy” and he is hopeful that this will be the first in a series of shipments of artifacts

Do you have any links to those pictures Cat? I remember seeing her when I was in Groton for BESS and ET schools.

They're actually from a facebook group of her crew members and their families. I'll ask the guy who posted them if it's ok to re-post them here. I can't find anything like them elsewhere, they were taken in the shipyard in NH. The sub museum in Groton doesn't have pictures of their aquisition up yet either.

Having worked on NR-1 doing RadCon support at NSSF in New London, I gained a lot of respect for the people that manned her...and had absolutely no desire to join them...

If you are going to have to go to sea...do it on a Trident.

"http://www.theday.com/article/20091102/NWS09/311029964/1017"

They have added a special exhibit dedicated to her at the sub museum which includes pieces of her.

The one quoted the most about her in the article(Cmdr McGrath) actually served as a full time crew member on her twice. Pretty neat.