Submarine Heritage Centre - Art Gallery

Submarine Heritage Centre

Registered Address:

53 Red Oak Avenue

Barrow-in-Furness

Cumbria, LA13 OLJ, UK

Tel: 01229 820993

Fax: 01229 772407

Dimensions: 23.75" x 16.5"

| Sponsorship Comments | Technical Data | Historical Data |

Sponsorship Comments

This painting was commissioned by the members of the Dreadnought Association. A spokesman for the Association commented as follows, "this excellent painting is a fine tribute to both Dreadnought herself and to the Vickers Armstrong workforce that took up the challenge of a new era of submarine building so successfully".

Technical Data

Builder:	Vickers Armstrong Limited - Barrow-in-Furness.
Yard Number:	1062
Pennant number:	S101
Ordered:	1958
Laid down:	12.06.1958 by H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh.
Launched:	21.10.1960 by Her Majesty the Queen.
Commissioned:	17.04.1963 by Commander B.F.P. Sambourne RN.
Dimensions (in feet and inches):	Length 265 feet 9 inches, Width 32 feet, Draught 27 feet.
Displacement:	Surface: 3,500 tons, Submerged: 4,000 tons.
Propulsion:	Single Westinghouse S5W nuclear Reactor. 2 Westinghouse steam turbines geared to a single shaft = 15,000 shp.
Speed:	Surface: 21 knots, submerged: 30 knots.
Endurance:	Unlimited.
Armaments:	5 x 21 inch Torpedo Tubes. 30 mark VIII torpedoes, later Mk 23.
Complement:	11 officers, 77 ratings.

Historical Data

For obvious reasons, Dreadnought spent a great deal of her first commission carrying out a multitude of trials on her new equipment, and exercising with various units of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy.

There were however some notable firsts in the five years of her first commission in which she steamed around 144,000 sea miles.

Visits to Norfolk VA, Bermuda, Southampton, Rotterdam and Kiel. August 1965 Home Fleet Review, Clyde. Visited by Her Majesty the Queen, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, HRH Prince Charles, Princess Anne and six Admirals.

July 1967. Sank the disabled and drifting chemical tanker Essberger Chemist carrying 6,000 gallons of acetone and alcohol, with four Mk VIII torpedoes.

Important Dates

September 19th to October 17th 1967

High speed passage from Faslane submarine base in Scotland to Lankawi via the Cape. Exercises with Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy units.

November 18th to December 15th 1967

High speed passage Singapore - Faslane. A round trip of 31,185 miles.

March 31st 1968

Families day in the Firth of Forth. First ever in a nuclear submarine.

April 1st 1968

Rosyth Dockyard, Scotland. Paid off for the first refit and refuel of a nuclear submarine in the United Kingdom.

September 10th 1970

Recommissioned - one year late.

March 3rd 1971

First British submarine to surface at the North Pole.

December 1st 1980

Dreadnought suffered cracks in her secondary cooling system requiring a complete shut down of her reactor. This led to the decision to take the submarine out of active service, due to the cost of repair.

Dreadnought's design drawings and her then new sonar technology were among the secrets sold to the Russians by the "Portland Spy Ring" of the 1960's.

The latest in a long line of Firsts is that the original painting of HMS/M Dreadnought was signed by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh on the 3rd December 2002, at Buckingham Palace.

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