NS Savannah open house on the horizon

Event details: The ship will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (EDT) and will be hosted by the NS Savannah Association in collaboration with MARAD. The association is a nonprofit that works to promote and preserve the history of the Savannah. The event will feature the opportunity to tour the ship’s midcentury modern interiors, engine and control rooms, and even its containment vessel, which housed the ship’s reactor.

Brief history: In 1954, after President Eisenhower’s seminal Atoms for Peace speech and the ensuing formation of the American Nuclear Society, the National Security Council launched deliberations on adding a nuclear-powered merchant ship to the nascent Atoms for Peace program.

A year-and-a-half later, President Eisenhower announced the project publicly, and it received congressional authorization in 1956. Over the next six years, the 595-foot-long, 78-foot-wide Savannah was built at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, N.J.

The Savannah entered service in May 1962 and was removed in July 1970. In that time, the ship visited 32 domestic and 45 international ports, covering the East, Gulf, and West coasts; Hawaii; the Far East; northern Europe; and the Mediterranean. During its operational life, it used roughly 163 pounds of enriched uranium—the equivalent of 28,600,000 gallons of bunker C fuel oil. It was powered by a 69-MWt pressurized water reactor (later uprated to 80 MWt).

In the more than 450,000 nautical miles it crossed, the Savannah served as a floating ambassador for the safe and peaceful use of nuclear power. It was named after the revolutionary SS Savannah of 1819, the first steamship to make a transoceanic voyage. In addition to its peace objectives, Congress also hoped that this first civilian deployment of nuclear power in the maritime sector would lead to myriad technical, administrative, and legal solutions to issues facing the industry. In 1991, ANS designated the Savannah a nuclear historic landmark.