USS Jimmy Carter takes dive with namesake on board

<p>Today former President Jimmy Carter completed his first submarine dive since he left the Navy in 1953, but this time it was in a new nuclear vessel bearing his name.</p><p>The U.S.-S Jimmy Carter pulled into this Navy submarine base after a night of cruising below the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the Georgia coast.</p><p>Carter was accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn, and a crew of 151. For Mrs. Carter, the boat's sponsor, it was her first submarine dive.</p><p>The submarine is the first named after a living ex-president. Carter was a submariner during his time in the Navy after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy.</p><p>Carter called it -- quote -- "the finest ship in this Navy or in any Navy."</p><p>The U.S.-S Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and is the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War's final years. It is 453 feet long, weighs 12,000 tons and carries 50 torpedoes. It cost three-point-two billion.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2005/8/141221