The contract to build Gurnard was awarded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California, on 24 October 1963, and her keel was laid down there on 22 December 1964.

The heavy weather had already forced surface ships to turn back, and caused the round-hulled submarine to roll and corkscrew violently.

Over the next hour, they were brought aboard, a task made more challenging by the 40-foot (12 m) waves that often exposed the submarine's screw and the ballast tank flood grates at the bottom of the boat.

Gurnard operated in the Arctic Ocean under the polar ice cap from September to November 1984 in company with one of her sister ships, the attack submarine USS Pintado (SSN-672).

In March 1990, Gurnard deployed to the Arctic region during exercise Ice Ex '90 and completed only the fourth winter submerged transit of the Bering Sea.

Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, was completed on 15 October 1997.