Laid down in December 1968 and launched on 24 October 1969 and commissioned into the South African Navy under the command of Lt Cdr Lambert Jackson "Woody" Woodburne on 26 February 1971.

The submarine was christened SAS Emily Hobhouse after Emily Hobhouse, the British humanitarian and philanthropist who exposed the atrocious conditions into which some British concentration camps imprisoning the non-combatant Afrikaner population had deteriorated during the Boer War in South Africa.

[3] The Special Forces team placed explosives on a bridge, next to power lines and other targets around town.

[3] On 17 February 1982, SAS Emily Hobhouse was part of a submarine officer commanding course exercise that took place 80 nautical miles (150 km) off Cape Point.

The heavy seas were causing clutter on the radar screens and the execution of a World War II-era convoy maneuver in the rough seas ended in a collision at 4:23am between Tafelberg and President Kruger which resulted in minor damage to Tafelberg and the sinking of President Kruger on the morning of 18 February with a loss of 16 lives.