Albacore Museum in Portsmouth, Rockingham County, United States | Museum | Submarine museum

Welcome to Albacore Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the United States, climb aboard and discover a brief history of Albacore and how it came to be part of a submarine Museum.
Saving the Albacore for the Albacore Museum. On October 1, 1972, Albacore was decommissioned. Her unreliable pancake engines had finally caught up with her and test operations were severely curtailed and eventually canceled. Plans to replace the pancake diesel engines would have required adding a 12-foot section to the hull. The cost of such a modification and the resulting increase in drag was unacceptable.
While the Navy was considering how to usefully send Albacore to a watery grave, other forces were in motion to return her to her place of birth. Joseph Sawtelle, a leader in organizing the Portsmouth Marine Society, was exploring the possibility of forming a maritime Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He had acquired property as a possible site for the Museum and was considering ways to get the project off the ground. He was advised to get a center piece, a real ship.
Albacore sits in dignified silence on her concrete cradle alongside the Route 1 By-Pass at Albacore Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. About every five years, her hull gets a fresh coat of paint. Volunteers from submarines in overhaul at the nearby shipyard provide the labor. The Park throws a cookout for the volunteers afterward.
A small Visitor's Center building is the starting point for touring Albacore Museum. The Center has a display of submarine memorabilia and sells submarine souvenirs and books. In 2005, an audio tour system was put in place outside on the park grounds and inside Albacore. The tour provides visitors with information about Albacore's unique external and internal features and relates experiences of some of her former crew members.