USS Albacore
569 Submarine Way
Portsmouth, NH
A one-of-a-kind test submarine, cradled in a park on dry land, whose radical teardrop hull became the shape of every fast submarine that followed.
The USS Albacore looks at first like an ordinary museum submarine, but it is one of the most important experimental ships the Navy ever built. Launched in 1953 and built across the river at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, she was not designed to fight. She was a research boat, a floating laboratory whose job was to test a radically new hull shape, and what she proved changed submarines forever.
Her rounded, tapering teardrop hull, unlike the long, ship-like hulls of earlier submarines, was optimized to move through water rather than on top of it, and it made her extraordinarily fast and maneuverable submerged. That shape became the model for the fast nuclear submarines that followed. Today the Albacore rests in a park on dry land in Portsmouth, and visitors can walk through her cramped interior and stand where her crew ran the tests.
What Guests Love
- Walking through the tight interior of a real submarine
- Seeing the revolutionary teardrop hull that changed submarine design
- A boat built and tested right here on the Piscataqua
- A compact, memorable stop near downtown Portsmouth
Worth Knowing
- The interior is narrow and involves ladders and hatches, so it suits the reasonably mobile
- The museum and boat are seasonal, so check hours before visiting
- Allow around an hour for the visitor center and the walk-through
- It is a short drive or walk from Portsmouth's downtown attractions
Details
Portsmouth, NH
Learn about USS Albacore
The shape that changed submarines
Before the Albacore, most submarines were built with long, narrow hulls suited to running on the surface and only diving when necessary. The Albacore turned that thinking around. Her designers gave her a smooth, rounded teardrop hull shaped for efficiency underwater, more like a blimp or a whale than a surface ship, and paired it with a single propeller and refined controls.
The results were dramatic. Submerged, she was faster and more agile than anything before her, and the data she generated proved that the future of submarines lay in hulls built first and foremost for the world beneath the waves. The teardrop form she pioneered was adopted for the Navy's nuclear submarine fleet, so her influence rides inside every fast submarine that came after.
A floating laboratory
Through the 1950s and 1960s the Albacore served as a test platform, trying out new hull refinements, control surfaces, dive brakes, and equipment. She repeatedly set underwater speed records and pushed the limits of what a submerged submarine could do, all in the service of research rather than combat.
Because she was an experimental boat, her interior reflects a working laboratory as much as a warship, packed with instruments and the tight quarters her small crew shared during trials. Walking through her today, visitors get a vivid sense of both the cramped life aboard a submarine and the inventive spirit of the program that built her.
Home in Portsmouth
The Albacore was built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the historic yard on the Maine side of the Piscataqua River that has produced submarines for the Navy for generations, so bringing her to Portsmouth as a museum returned her to her birthplace. Moving the retired submarine out of the water and into a landlocked memorial park was itself a considerable feat of engineering.
Today she is the centerpiece of a memorial park with a visitor center that tells her story and honors submariners. Her location near the heart of Portsmouth makes her an easy addition to a day in the seaport, pairing a piece of Cold War naval innovation with the city's much older maritime history.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Portsmouth
Portsmouth downtown and waterfront
About 1 mile, a 5 minute drive
A walkable brick district of shops and restaurants along the Piscataqua, with Prescott Park and tugboats at the water's edge.
Strawbery Banke Museum
About 1 mile, a 5 minute drive
A ten-acre living-history neighborhood of restored houses spanning three centuries of the seaport.
Portsmouth Harbor Light
About 4 miles, a 12 minute drive
A historic lighthouse beside Fort Constitution at the mouth of the harbor in New Castle.