Photos of Submarines That Bumped Into Things

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USS SARGO (SSN 583). Damage done to the sail after hitting ice keel during winter time transit of Bering Strait in 1960.

What's an "ice keel" you ask.  I asked Mike Hacking, the submitter of the photo and this is his response:

When two ice sheets come together they overlap, break, and pile "down" in giant "peaks" of ice. They have been known to extend down over 150 feet. In the Bering Strait where Sargo was in 1960 the water is only 150 to 200 feet and in the middle of winter when they were there, these ice keels presented virtual walls of ice that had to be navigated around. I have attached an artist's rendetion that was done, at the time, to show the scale of the keel and the depth of the water. The rendetion was done in 1960, I added the color.

There is some video footage (very brief) that shows a submarine passing beneath an ice keel and also a SSN 637 Class submarine that has just submerged after having been surfaced in the ice (note the cross pattern where the sail and sail planes broke thru the ice).

http://www.csp.navy.mil/asl/SRVSFootage.html 

This is a screen capture of the ice keel video available via the above Navy link:

Submitted by Mike Hacking

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