| IMO | 5314793 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 15,585 GT |
| Length | 166.1 m |
| Beam | 23.77 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 84 |
| Service speed | 21.0 knots |
| Builder | New York Shipbuilding Corporation |
| Yard | Camden |
| Launched | 1959 |
| Maiden voyage | 1964 |
| Status | Preserved |
| Preserved at | Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
Overview
The ship listed in the dataset as Savannah is NS Savannah — the "NS" standing for Nuclear Ship — the first nuclear-powered merchant ship in the world, and one of the most consequential experimental vessels ever built. She was a United States government demonstration project, funded by federal agencies as the flagship of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace programme: a combined passenger and cargo ship intended to prove that nuclear power could serve peaceful, commercial purposes, and to show the American flag and the atom in ports around the world.
She was named after SS Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic, in 1819. Built at Camden, New Jersey, launched in 1959, in service in the 1960s and withdrawn in the early 1970s, she was never commercially viable — she was never meant, in truth, to be — but she worked: she carried passengers and cargo, visited ports worldwide, and steamed hundreds of thousands of miles on a single reactor core. She survives, uniquely, as a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland — the preserved location in the dataset — still owned by the U.S. Maritime Administration and designated a National Historic Landmark.
Key specifications
The dataset records her at 15,585 GT, 166.1 m long, 23.77 m in beam, with a maximum capacity of 84 passengers and a speed of 21.0 knots. Several of those figures conflict significantly with her Wikipedia article, which gives 13,599 GRT, a length of 596 ft (181.66 m), the same beam of 78 ft (23.77 m), capacity of 60 passengers plus cargo, and a crew of 124. The article's machinery figures are consistent across sources: one Babcock & Wilcox pressurised-water reactor of 74 MW thermal output, driving two De Laval steam turbines on a single shaft, about 20,300 hp designed, a service speed of 21 knots and a maximum of about 24 knots.
Her range explains the experiment: about 300,000 nautical miles at 20 knots on a single load of 32 fuel elements. Her cost was $46.9 million, of which $28.3 million was the nuclear plant and fuel — the reactor cost more than the ship herself, a ratio that foretold her commercial fate.
Design and construction
Savannah was ordered in 1955 and built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden, New Jersey — yard number 529 in her Wikipedia article — to a design by George G. Sharp, Inc. She was deliberately handsome: unlike a working freighter, she has the raked, yacht-like lines of a small liner, because she was a showpiece as much as a ship. She combined three functions that sat uneasily together: a cargo ship of about 14,040 tons cargo capacity in the article's figures, with holds and her own cargo gear; a passenger ship for a few dozen guests in first-class, mid-century style; and a nuclear power plant, housed in a containment vessel amidships, with its control room, observation arrangements and safety systems.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was launched on 21 July 1959, sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower, the First Lady — a christening that underlined her status as a national project rather than a shipping company's venture. Her name reached back deliberately to 1819: SS Savannah, part sail and part steam, had been the first steam-assisted vessel to cross the Atlantic, and the nuclear Savannah was presented as her heir, opening a third age of marine propulsion after sail and steam.
The dataset gives her maiden voyage as 1964. Her Wikipedia article distinguishes two dates: a maiden voyage on 20 August 1962, after her delivery to the Maritime Administration on 1 May 1962 and completion in December 1961, and entry into full service in 1964, after an extended period of trials, demonstration voyages and the resolution of crew and operating arrangements. Either way, her early 1960s voyages were as much diplomatic as commercial: she was shown to the public in port after port, with visitor numbers in her demonstration period famously running to enormous crowds.
Career by operator
Ownership never left the United States government — the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) — and her dataset operator history names her two commercial operators:
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 1962–1965 | Savannah (NS Savannah) | States Marine Lines, Inc. |
| 1965–1972 | Savannah (NS Savannah) | American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines |
Under States Marine Lines she made her demonstration and early commercial voyages as a passenger-cargo liner. In 1965, under American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines, her passenger service ended and she continued as a cargo-only vessel — the configuration in which her economics were tested on purely freight terms, and found wanting. She was deactivated in 1971 and went out of service on 10 January 1972 by the article's dating. She was one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built, of which she was the first and remains the most famous.
Onboard character
Savannah's passenger spaces are a preserved time capsule of American mid-century modern design, and they were meant to impress: she was a floating exhibition of the peaceful atom. Contemporary descriptions of her interiors, confirmed by what visitors see in Baltimore today, emphasise atomic-age motifs — stylised atom symbols in light fittings and decoration — cool, modernist furniture, a cocktail lounge and veranda, a formal dining room, and compact, well-finished staterooms for her few dozen passengers. A swimming pool and broad decks completed a small-liner arrangement that had more in common with a private yacht's scale than with a mass-market passenger ship.
Major refits and incidents
Savannah was never re-engined, converted or rebuilt — her significance depends on her surviving essentially as built. Her post-service history is instead a long decommissioning: her nuclear fuel was removed after her retirement, while parts of the reactor system that retain radioactivity remained aboard, under licence, which is why her preservation has always been managed by MARAD rather than simply handed to a museum. In 1981 she was chartered for display at the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum near Charleston, South Carolina, where visitors could tour her holds, staterooms and passenger areas and view the reactor spaces from an observation window; the charter ended in 1994 after inspections showed she needed drydocking, and she was repaired at Baltimore and then laid up in the James River reserve fleet in Virginia.
Work in Norfolk in 2006–07 repaired her exterior and water-damaged interiors, and on 8 May 2008 she arrived under tow in Baltimore, where she has remained, at Pier 13 of the Canton Marine Terminal, under MARAD contract. In recent years the long process of decommissioning her nuclear systems has been brought toward completion, and her custodians have been seeking a permanent museum future for the hull — a search reported as still unresolved in recent coverage. No marine casualty of significance attaches to her operating career.
Sister ships and class
Savannah has no sister ship; she was a unique prototype. Her peer group is the handful of nuclear merchant vessels ever completed: the Soviet icebreaker Lenin (1957), the German cargo ship Otto Hahn, the Japanese experimental vessel Mutsu and the Soviet/Russian Sevmorput. Of these, Savannah alone was a passenger-carrying merchant ship, and alone survives in a museum role. She was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 14 November 1982 and designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on 17 July 1991.
Fate and where she is now
Withdrawn in the early 1970s, displayed at Patriots Point through the 1980s and early 1990s, laid up in reserve, and since 2008 moored at Pier 13, Canton Marine Terminal, Baltimore, Maryland — the fate the dataset records: "Preserved as a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland." She remains there under the U.S. Maritime Administration, a National Historic Landmark whose reactor systems have been progressively decommissioned. Her future berth has been the subject of discussion as decommissioning concludes, but as of the sources used for this guide she is in Baltimore, cared for with the support of the N.S. Savannah Association, the volunteer body devoted to her preservation.
Visit her today
Savannah is not a walk-up museum with daily hours; she opens to the public on scheduled open-house days, traditionally centred on National Maritime Day in May and on other announced public site visits through the year. She lies at Pier 13, Canton Marine Terminal, 4601 Newgate Avenue, Baltimore, alongside the Liberty ship John W. Brown. The association's site, ns-savannah.com — its upcoming-events page is where open days are announced and where visitors are asked to check details and RSVP — is the official source to consult before travelling.
On open days, event listings describe self-guided and guided access to the ship much as her 1960s visitors experienced her: the mid-century modern passenger spaces with their atomic motifs, passenger and officer staterooms, the dining room and cocktail lounge, the galley and veranda, and the engine and control rooms. A highlight of recent open houses has been access, for the first time, to the containment vessel that once housed her reactor — the space at the heart of her story, formerly off limits throughout her museum life. Practical notes recur in the event guidance: no open-toed shoes or heels, and limited accessibility for visitors with disabilities, as befits a working 1950s ship. Visits are generally free. Because she opens only sporadically, timing a trip to an announced open day is essential — but for anyone interested in the atomic age, this is the only nuclear merchant ship in the world that can be boarded at all.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ocean_liners, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah, https://www.ns-savannah.com/upcomingevents, https://baltimore.org/event/historic-nuclear-ship-savannah-public-site-visit-3/, https://www.ans.org/news/2026-04-29/article-7989/ns-isavannahi-open-house-for-national-maritime-day/