USS Hunley (AS-31)

USS Hunley (AS-31) off Guam in 1980
History
United States
Name:	USS Hunley (AS-31)
Namesake:	Horace Lawson Hunley
Awarded:	16 November 1959
Builder:	Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company
Laid down:	28 November 1960
Launched:	28 September 1961
Commissioned:	16 June 1962
Decommissioned:	30 September 1994
Struck:	3 May 1995
Motto:	We Serve to Preserve Peace
Fate:	Sold for scrap 5 January 2007
General characteristics
Class and type:	Hunley-class submarine tender
Displacement:	19,000 tons
Length:	599 ft (183 m)
Beam:	83 ft (25 m)
Draft:	23 ft 4 in (7.11 m)
Speed:	18 kn (33 km/h)
Complement:	1,190
Armament:	2 x 5"

USS Hunley (AS-31) was a submarine tender of the United States Navy launched on 28 September 1961 and commissioned 16 June 1962. The Hunley was designed to tend most of the long-term requirements of the Polaris Class of submarines. The ship achieved several records and milestones in its service. The Hunley was decommissioned from the regular navy, in 1995 transferred to the US Maritime Commission, and in 2007 sold as scrap to a metal recycling company in Louisiana. In September 2008, during Hurricane Gustav, the decommissioned ship broke free of its moorings in the New Orleans Inner Harbor, but caused little or no damage while adrift.

Hunley had the distinction of being the first ship designed and built from the keel up to service and maintain the U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered Ballistic Missile Submarine Fleet. She had complete facilities for servicing the complex Polaris Weapons Systems and for accomplishing any submarine repair other than a major shipyard overhaul. The hull was laid down in by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia and sponsored by Mrs. J. Palmer Gaillard, wife of the Mayor of Charleston, South Carolina. The ship was named in honor of Horace Lawson Hunley, the designer of the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in naval history, the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley.

With Captain Douglas N. Syverson in command, Hunley sailed 25 July 1962 for shakedown training off Cuba until 6 September 1962. She visited several Gulf and Atlantic ports and returned to Norfolk 28 September for post-shakedown alterations until 8 December, 1962. After which the Hunley paid a 3-day visit to New York City to host the Naval Reserve Officers Seminar "New Ships for the Modern Navy". She departed from the Norfolk Operating Base 29 December 1962 for Holy Loch, Scotland, arriving 9 January 1963. Almost immediately she began taking the load off USS Proteus, whom she officially relieved 15 March 1963 as tender to Submarine Squadron 14 at Holy Loch. This duty continued until 12 April 1964 when Hunley sailed for conversion that provided capability of handling the new A3 Polaris Missile. She resumed her duties at Holy Loch on 15 June 1964.