A Bremerton-based Seawolf-class submarine that has called the Navy town home for 18 years in its over 27 years of service is scheduled to be inactivated in 2031.
The Navy plans to inactivate the Seawolf-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) in 2031, according to the Navy’s latest Shipbuilding Plan released in May. This means the Connecticut will serve four to five more years before its retirement if the boat’s current repair work at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is completed later this year. The Connecticut struck an uncharted seamount in the South China Sea in October 2021, with 11 sailors injured, and returned to Bremerton in December that year.
USS Connecticut came to Bremerton in 2008
Commissioned on Dec. 11, 1998, the USS Connecticut is the second of the Navy’s three Seawolf-class submarines. The boat moved from Groton, Connecticut, to Bremerton, Washington, in January 2008, according to Kitsap Sun archives.
The cold war-era Seawolf-class was built to be quieter than Los Angeles-class submarine, faster, has more torpedo tubes, and can carry up to 50 torpedoes or missiles, or 100 mines. The Navy originally planned to build 29 of them, but the end of the Cold War and budget constraints led to a restructuring of the class to only three subs — the Connecticut, the USS Seawolf (SSN 21), and the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23). All of them call the Kitsap Peninsula home…