Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index USS Providence (SSN-719) was the 32nd of the 688, or Los Angeles-Class Fast Attack submarines built. She is a Flight III boat, the first of the 688's with the Vertical Launch System (VLS) installed. The keel was laid on 14 October 1982 at General Dynamics - Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut and was launched on 4 August 1984. She was commissioned as a vessel of the United States Navy on 27 July 1985. Like all 688's, the Providence is 360 feet long, 33 feet wide, and 50 feet from keel to sail. When submerged, she displaces 6900 tons of water. She carries a crew of 14 officers and 115 enlisted men. The Providence and her sister 688's are capable of submerged speeds in excess of 25 knots and can dive to depths exceeding 800 feet. The deeper she dives, the quieter she becomes. She is equipped with a General Electric S6G water cooled nuclear reactor to produce steam for both the electric turbines for power and the main engines for propulsion. USS Providence is homeported at the US Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut. She has been deployed multiple times to places as diverse as the Western Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Some of the ports visited have included Port Canaveral (Cocoa Beach) and Port Everglades (Ft Lauderdale) in Florida, Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico, Tromso in Norway, Gibraltar, Toulon in France, Bahrain, and both Dubai and Jebel'Ali in the United Arab Emirates. The submarine has made two transits of the Suez Canal. External link http://www.providenceri.com/uss-providence/main.html This entry is based on public domain material from the Naval Historical Center This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.