OMSI submarine on the willamette
— — a quiet boat with a loud history.
Not only on a wall.
“The USS Blueback, a Barbel-class diesel-electric submarine, tied up alongside the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on the east bank of the Willamette. Three hundred and nineteen feet of black steel against a green river, a few minutes' walk from the Hawthorne Bridge. The last non-nuclear combat submarine commissioned by the US Navy, retired in 1990 and brought up the Columbia under tow. Visitors duck through the watertight hatches on a guided tour that runs most days.
OMSI submarine on the willamette, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The USS Blueback (SS-581) is a Barbel-class submarine moored on the east bank of the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, as a permanent exhibit of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. She is 219 feet long, displaces 2,640 tons surfaced, and was commissioned in 1959. When she was decommissioned in 1990 she was the last non-nuclear combat submarine in the US Pacific Fleet. OMSI acquired her in 1994 and she has been open to the public, by guided tour, ever since. The museum sits between the Marquam and Hawthorne bridges, just south of downtown.
Blueback is one of three Barbel-class boats the Navy built — the others were Barbel and Bonefish — and the class introduced the teardrop-shaped Albacore hull to the diesel-electric fleet. The hull was welded high-tensile steel, designed for a test depth of about 700 feet. The boat carried six 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow and a crew of around 85. She has a small film résumé to match the operational one: she played the Soviet submarine Konovalov in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, the year she was retired.
Submarine tours are an add-on ticket on top of OMSI general admission and run as small guided groups, typically about 45 minutes. Visitors climb down through the forward hatch into the torpedo room, move aft through the control room, the wardroom, and the engine spaces, and exit through the aft hatch. The tour involves stepping through narrow watertight doors and steep ladders. OMSI is at 1945 SE Water Avenue, served by the Tilikum Crossing MAX line and the Eastbank Esplanade. The submarine is visible from the bridges above without admission.