USS Finback (SSN-670)
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| Name: | USS Finback (SSN-670) |
| Namesake: | The finback, a whale |
| Ordered: | 9 March 1965 |
| Builder: | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia |
| Laid down: | 26 June 1967 |
| Launched: | 7 December 1968 |
| Sponsored by: | Mrs. Charles F. Bird |
| Commissioned: | 4 February 1970 |
| Decommissioned: | 28 March 1997 |
| Struck: | 28 March 1997 |
| Motto: | All Good Men |
| Honors and awards: |
Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award for U.S. Atlantic Fleet 1986 |
| Fate: | Scrapping via Ship and Submarine Recycling Program completed 30 October 1997 |
| Badge: |  |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Sturgeon-class attack submarine |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 292 ft (89 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft (9.8 m) |
| Draft: | 29 ft (8.8 m) |
| Installed power: | 15,000 shaft horsepower (11.2 megawatts) |
| Propulsion: | One S5W nuclear reactor, two steam turbines, one screw |
| Speed: |
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| Test depth: | 1,300 feet (396 meters) |
| Complement: | 109 (14 officers, 95 enlisted men) |
| Armament: | 4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes |
USS Finback (SSN-670), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the finback, the common whale of the Atlantic coast of the United States.
The contract to build Finback was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Newport News, Virginia, on 9 March 1965 and her keel was laid down there on 26 June 1967. She was launched on 7 December 1968, sponsored by Mrs. Charles F. Baird, wife of the Under Secretary of the Navy, and commissioned on 4 February 1970 with Commander Robert C. Austin in command.
On 10 July 1975, the captain of the Finback permitted a topless farewell dance to be performed on the diving plane of the sail by a local go-go dancer known as Cat Futch (Cathy Susan Futch) as the vessel departed Port Canaveral, Florida. On 1 August 1975, when the Navy brass learned of the incident, the submarine was ordered back to port and the captain was relieved of his command, "pending the investigation of an incident of a non-operational nature." The captain, Cdr. Connelly D. Stevenson, 41, gave permission for the act as a reward for performance by his crew during a major overhaul at the Naval shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, the preceding year which cut two months off of a scheduled 12-month overhaul at considerable savings to the government. Stevenson was seeking to be reinstated in his command and said that he did not know how the incident had leaked to the media. "I'm in the middle of Navy proceedings in my behalf and I'm already concerned that the press just has not done my cause any good and it's certainly my intention not to continue the press activity," he stated in a 9 September 1975 Washington Post report that publicly broke the incident.
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