I’m here! I finally made it to the Submarine Force Library & Museum. Wow! There is so much to see and I haven’t even gone inside the museum yet. Here is a picture of me at the entrance of the museum. See those big rings? They show the diameter (that’s how big around they are) of two submarines – the USS Holland and the USS Ohio. Look at how much smaller the USS Holland (SS-1) is compared to the USS Ohio (SS-726)! Hey! Can you see me on the ring?
I learned some cool stuff about the two submarines…
USS Holland was the Navy’s first submarine. It was designed by John Holland, a school teacher and inventor, in 1900, (wait…..a school teacher did that?). It was 55 feet long and its diameter was 10 feet 6 inches. (The Navy calls the diameter, the beam…which I don’t understand, because I don’t see any beams…) Nine men could go inside it, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but I think it is for such a small boat. I asked how fast Holland could go and my friends here told me that her speed was 7 knots. I thought that was really fast, but one knot is about 1.2 miles per hour, so that means that Holland could only go about 8 mph which is NOT very fast….I bet I could pedal my bike faster than that!
SSBN Ohio was built in 1981. It was designed and built by The Electric Boat Company, which is right down the street from the museum. (They’ve built LOTS of submarines in Groton; that’s why they call it The Submarine Capital of the World.) Anyway, the Ohio is 559 feet long and its beam is 42 feet!! Holy cow! That is a LOT bigger than the Holland! It can hold 160 men and it can move at a speed of more than 20 knots (that’s 24 mph)….still not as fast as a car, but sure faster than Holland.
Well, I’ve seen some other really cool stuff from up here, so I’m going to go check it out!
