USS San Francisco Bow Donor is USS Honolulu
The Navy will transplant the nose of one submarine onto another for the first time beginning later this year at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
USS Honolulu, currently on its final deployment, will provide the bow for USS San Francisco, according to Pat Dolan, spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. Both are Los Angeles-class submarines.
The San Francisco arrived in Bremerton Sept. 9, 2005 to await permanent repairs. Its bow was smashed, one sailor died and nearly 100 were injured when the sub hit an undersea mountain near Guam in January 2005.
Scheduled to begin in November and be completed in September 2008, the bow replacement will be the first of its kind on an operational hull, Dolan said.
The work is expected to cost $79 million — less than the $170 million that would be required to refuel the Honolulu.