Aboard the NS Savannah

noway2

noway2

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I thought I would post this in the communications, though it isn't technically communication related, because it was via HAM radio that I first learned of this ship. Link is to an interesting article with lots of pictures about one of two nuclear powered civilian ships: https://arstechnica.com/information...st-and-last-nuclear-merchant-ship/?comments=1

One of the pictures contains a plaque listing events, including the National Maritime Day on May 22nd. I was playing around on the radio and heard them making a special event CQ call operating from this ship. I tuned in at the end of one session as they were changing staff. Before the shift change there was a crowd trying to get through and score the contact. After the change, they put a woman on the mic and it went from pile up to zoo. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get through the mess and make the contact.
 
I built a model of the NS Savannah when I was a kid several...er...decades ago.

It was briefly parked across the Elizabeth River from NNSY, where I work. I could see it plain as day from NNSY.

I toured it several times many years ago, while I was stationed in Charleston, SC and it was at Patriots Point.

The ship has a FASCINATING history. It was, essentially, the flagship for Atoms for Peace, as a demonstration that nuclear power could be used for peaceful merchant purposes such as cargo and passenger ship propulsion plants.

The only problem that ship had was the fact that it was designed to be a hybrid between a cargo and a passenger ship, supposedly to cater to both ends of the spectrum. The end results was she didn't do either very well, commercially. Design a cargo ship to carry passengers, and you can't carry nearly as much cargo as you'd like, so profits (if any) are very small. Design a passenger ship so it can carry cargo, and you can't carry nearly enough passengers as you'd like, so profits (if any) are very small.

As a result, she operated at a net loss for almost her entire life. She operated for 10 years, between 1962 and 1972, and was decommissioned early because of these fiscal problems.

The irony is that had they NOT decommissioned her, she would have been operating at enough of a profit to put her at least on par with any other merchant vessel in her size class.

If she had been designed as a cargo ship from the beginning, she likely would have remained in operation throughout her entire design hull life, and at a profit the entire time.

If she had been designed as a passenger/cruise ship from the beginning, she also would have likely remained in operation throughout her entire design hull life at a profit.

Though you couldn't tour the actual engineering spaces while at Patriots Point, you could look through a viewing window at parts of it. She also used to have a model of the reactor plant on display on the ship.

If you get a chance to tour the ship, I HIGHLY recommend it.

http://www.nssavannah.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah#Economics_of_nuclear_propulsion

http://www.ns-savannah.org/

https://maritime.org/tour/savannah/
 
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