This World war II fleet submarine is on display at Fisherman's wharf in San Francisco.

She is one of around 16 submarines on display in the United States. They are very popular with the visiting public.

The sub was towed to the Bay, Ship & Yacht shipyard in Alameda, California last week.

The hull is in the yard's dry dock where it is being sand blasted and painted. In addition the sub will have some work done on the deck and conning tower.

This is fairly standard preservation work for historic ships. What makes it special is that this is the second time the PAMANito has gone to dry dock.

A couple of other museum submarines have been to the shipyard once as private museums; but none of them twice!

A submarine is hands down the most unusual thing I have seen in a dry dock in my career in maritime preservation!

Ted Miles

Ted;

Thanks for sharing. Do you know what kind of diesel engine this sub had? I know some (including I believe the one preserved down in Galveston) had the same engine found on some locomotives. (I am having a senior moment right now, and cannot remember which engine it was.)

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

I visited the Pampanito (and Ted Miles) a few years ago, and believe it is powered by Fairbanks-Morse engines (four, I think). The one at Philadelphia had a form of GM (Cleveland?) two-cycle V12 or V16 engines.

Correct, four F&M opposed 10 cylinder engines with 1600 SHP each.

Interesting that of all the fleet type boats now in captivity the Pampanito is the most complete. The mains also will run and I have heard, not verified, that the current caretakers have had them running.

Yesss! God's diesel.

The USS BECUNA in Philly has four 268's, a less reliable beast.

Having operated and maintained both Cleveland Diesels and Fairbanks Morse 38D 8-1/8 engines in military applications, I am always fascinated by the folklore that the Fairbanks Morse is more "reliable". In a number of years working with both types I never saw any major difference in the reliability of these two engine builders products, they both built a top quality machine for the period in which they were produced. With proper maintenance and reasonable attention to how you operate, both builders products give many decades of reliable service.

Right now the count of surviving 1940s diesel power in the harbor of our local major city is five vessels with Cleveland Diesels, one with a Fairbanks Morse OP. The Cleveland Diesels are five to ten years older than the one remaining OP, but that makes little difference, all the engines have passed their 50th birthday, which is probably twice the active service life that was anticipated when they were installed. Diesel engines would not remain in daily service in a commercial marine towing operation unless they were very reliable, the cost of down-time on a vessel is too high to justify retaining an engine that causes you to be out of service, it gets replaced with something else.

The main thing that is killing off the Fairbanks Morse OP's is that for just a little more than the price of a full set of pistons and liners, you can replace the OP with a completely rebuilt 16 cylinder EMD. There is no point in doing piece by piece replacements in an engine where you have to pull the upper crankshaft to remove the cylinder liners, so when the OP engines require an overhaul nowadays they usually get replaced rather than rebuilt.

In my limited experience, we found that the Clevelands had less than optimal oil pressure in the head end as built. Pressure could drop off to as little as 17 psi, wiping the timing gears.

Most applications that I saw used a make-up pump to keep the pressure up. Trouble was, engineers forgot to shut off the pump when the engine was shut down - meaning no scavenging pump - thereby filling the pan and pumping oil past the rear seal into the bilge.

Another problem with the low pressure was blown piston crowns. The thin pistons would not receive their proper cooling when the pressure dropped, leaving hot spots that burnt through.

This was commonly-shared experience among the tug crews on the Delaware.

This sub was used in the movie Down Perisope several years ago. She was actually under her own power for the movie. I don't know how many of the 4 diesels were operational as she could move on just one. I don't believe she dived at all either.

WW 2 subs would generally charge batteries overnight while on the surface often the captain would have up to 3 engines being used for battery charges and one for power until he felt comfortable with the charge he had on.

Fairbanks diesels were prefered by most captains because they had a reputaion for being "smokeless". This was handy later in the war when our subs were being more daring and preforming daytime surface actions.
The skippers felt with the FM engines they could get closer to enemy shipping before having to dive.

By the way if you have never seen Down Periscope it is a fun movie with not too many errors!

I think that the sub preserved in the Willamette River in Portland is one of several used in the movie Hunt for Red October. It is the sub that "jumps" out of the water toward the end of the movie.

Don't know the name, history, or engines.

I am glad to hear of happier stories for subs. Here in NJ, the USS Lang has been moored in the Hackensack River since 1973. The landowner wants to redevelop and has told the society that owns the sub it has to leave. They don't have the money to do so, indeed it looks like some serious restoration needs to occur as well.

Since we're so far off-topic to start with...

My grandfather worked for Sun Oil on coastal tankers, retired, and then went back to work with the Interstate tugboat company in Philadelphia. He was an engineer. Shortly before he died he took me to visit a tug moored near the Airport. First time I ever saw a girlie calendar.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone familiar with tugs around Philly in the '70s might have known him. His name was Robert Matthews. I'd also love to know if any of the tugs or tankers he served on are still afloat anywhere.

Can you please confirm the name of the sub / ship in NJ? The USS Lang was a frigate that has been scrapped.

My bad - fat fingers.

The sub is the USS Ling.

Here is their website:

http://www.njnm.com/

Ling? Lang? Wallawalla bing bang?

Just finished a book about the Houston, and how her crew (as POWs) built the Bridge over the River Kwai RR connecting Burma and Thailand. Too much to explore in a short post, but there was a fine picture of Pampanito collecting survivors of a ship in it, pleased to see in-service photos of a sub I have set foot on.

Interested? Read SHIP OF GHOSTS by Hornfischer. Won't review it here, Hume is tired of my maritime reviews.

dave