In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the United States would build the world’s first nuclear-powered cargo/passenger ship, the NS Savannah. The keel was laid in 1958, and the ship entered service in 1962. Over the next nine years, in her role as an “Atoms for Peace” ambassador, she traveled half a million miles, with port calls on the U.S. coasts and around the world, welcoming more than 1.4 million visitors.
The Savannah was a graceful ship, running a gleaming white 595.5 feet from flared bow to cruiser stern, with a sculpted ultra-modern superstructure. She was built with seven cargo holds and luxurious accommodations, including 30 first-class staterooms, for her passengers. In 1963–64, Captain Franklin Shellenbarger, U.S. Maritime Service, served as chief officer and relieving master on board the Savannah. In his 2003 Naval Institute oral history, he discussed the behind-the-scenes challenges of bringing the revolutionary ship from drafting table to entry into service.
The ship was launched in 1959 at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey. Mamie Eisenhower was the sponsor. Anybody who wants to look at the record will see who the naval architects were. In my opinion, they did a lousy job—first, failing to take into consideration that there had to be access to the top of the reactor to replace tubes.
In the original plans, they had the bridge and all the control devices over the top of the reactor. It made a nice looking ship, but it wasn’t practical. They had to revise the plans while it was still on the ways and move the whole bridge structure aft. That freed up the reactor hatch, which was the number four hatch.
By moving the superstructure aft, it then went over the top of the number five cargo hatch, which meant they would have to go through the bottom of the swimming pool to get into number five. In the Savannah’s case, they put two big side ports into number five and used elevators to load cargo. That was not practical. Starboard five became a deck storeroom; port became an engineers’ storeroom.
The next big boo-boo was something I saw while we were in homeport in Galveston. I was out on the pier one day looking at the draft marks, which weren’t just painted on. They were welded in place. I came back to the boatswain and said, “Hey, something is wrong. I don’t see how it could be. I took the amidships draft marks. They’re out about 7-8 inches. The forward and aft draft marks look okay. What’s wrong?”
Then I asked Captain McMichael about it. He said, “Well, this is one of those stories that isn’t well known. It was never publicized and for obvious reasons.” When the ship was launched, he rode her down the ways. He said that somebody failed to take into consideration the fact that they built the reactor shielding on the vessel roughly amidships—weighing well over 3,000 tons in one spot. When she went down the ways, the stern became waterborne and the center of the ship didn’t. When it hit the water, the ship sagged something like 18 inches. He said, “We thought the ship was going to sink right there in the Delaware.”
Tugs came alongside. They heard the tremendous crashing of bulkheads buckling. Elevator shafts out of alignment. Of course, most of the paint at that time was primer. It was falling off the bulkheads. New York Ship had a graving dock ready, because that is where they were planning to move it anyway. They immediately shoved it in, first moving the blocks because of the sag.
The delivery of the ship was delayed for two years while they rebuilt. They reduced the sag from 18 inches to 7 inches, and that is what I was reading on the draft marks in Galveston.
