[GATOR NAVY]

My folks tell me I went on the Savannah as a baby when the ship visited Seattle. My Mom talked about standing in line for hours to get onboard.
I wish I had known about this move ahead of time. I would have gone down and watched.

The Savannah is eased up the Elizabeth River just past the Berkley Bridge by several tugs Tuesday on its way to Colonna’s Shipyard for cleaning and upgrades. BILL TIERNAN/THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

[Bender2]

IIRC the Savannah was laid up in Galveston back in the early 1970s. I seem to recall passing her on the way out and back from off shore fishing in those days...

[Conan the Librarian]

She needs to come home to Savannah, GA.

I toured the NS Savannah several times when it was in Charleston. It was still a beautiful craft then, and could be again with a little love and money.

It's time for her to come home.

[Conan the Librarian]

Just noticed the line about the reactor. Unless they put it back in, it is gone. There was a giant hole in the deck where the reactor was, but, it was empty.

[Oberon]

...repairing cargo wenches...

[Cold Heart]

What a striking contrast that ship is. High tech engine and low tech cargo handling equipment. She's an old "boom ship" (named after her cargo booms)

[DManA]

prepare the ship for a new mission as a congressional boondoggle.

[Bender2]

Re: "The sleek, white vessel was the world's first and the nation's only nuclear-powered cargo and passenger ship - the brainchild of President Eisenhower and part of his Atoms for Peace program in the 1950s."

BTW from List of civilian nuclear ships

Mutsu, Japan
Otto Hahn, Germany
NS Savannah, United States
Sevmorput, Russia (former Soviet Union)

[Clioman]

"My folks tell me I went on the Savannah as a baby when the ship visited Seattle. My Mom talked about standing in line for hours to get onboard."

The Savannah also came to Portland, and my dad took my younger brother, a neighborhood friend and I to see it...we also stood in line, but I still have a mental image of the beautiful model of the original Savannah -- the first paddlewheel steamship to cross the Atlantic from America to Europe -- on display in the main dining room (?). I wonder if it's still there...

[from occupied ga]

It was my understanding that the thing was so severely contaminated that it had to be taken out of service

[Charles Martel]

My dad, two uncles and my wife's grandfather all worked for steamship lines from shortly after WWII through the early '80s. I've never been aboard NS Savannah, but I recognized the name immediately. There was a huge painting of it on my dad's office wall. In fact, many of the steamship companies had paintings or models of NS Savannah on display. In the early '60s, it was a glimpse at what they thought might be commonplace in a decade or so.

Instead, nuclear power was abandoned and ship design shortly thereafter was changed to accomodate containerized cargo. Still, it's a shame they're not going to repower the ship with a conventional boiler.