[4] Her overall design (known as SCB 64A) was a variant of Nautilus, but with numerous detail changes, such as a conning tower, stepped sail, and the BQR-4 passive sonar mounted in the top portion of the bow instead of further below.

[5] Seawolf was the same basic "double hull" twin-screw submarine design as her predecessor USS Nautilus (SSN-571), but her propulsion system was more technologically advanced.

The Submarine Intermediate Reactor (SIR) nuclear plant was designed by General Electric's Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and prototyped in West Milton, New York.

In Rickover's words they were "expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.

During the parallel construction of the first nuclear submarines, the Navy, the Atomic Energy Commission, its independent labs, and the shipyard all worked together to learn together.

Dennis B. Boykin III would lead EB's power plant installation, and return to the project two years later for the reactor conversion.

[citation needed] Lieutenant James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, the only US President to qualify in submarines, was to be her Engineering Officer, but had resigned his commission upon the death of his father in 1953.

She received the Navy Unit Commendation[11]: 344  for demonstrating the ability of the nuclear-powered submarine to remain independent of the atmosphere for the period of a normal war patrol.

[citation needed] Seawolf returned to Electric Boat Company in Groton, Connecticut, on 12 December 1958, for conversion of her power plant from a S2G sodium-cooled LMFR to a S2Wa PWR.

The Office of Naval Reactors had determined that the unique superheated steam powerplant was too difficult to maintain, since the superheaters were rarely operational.

On 25 January, she was ordered to locate and track the Portuguese passenger liner Santa Maria which had been seized by pirates two days earlier.

[citation needed] On 7 July, Seawolf began a two-month oceanographic voyage which took her to Portsmouth, England, before returning the vessel to New London on 19 September 1961.

[citation needed] In 1963, Seawolf participated in the search for the lost submarine USS Thresher and in various local and fleet operations until April 1964.

On that date, the submarine entered the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for refueling and an extensive overhaul bringing her up to the SUBSAFE standard put in place after the loss of Thresher.

She had to have a propeller replaced at Charleston, South Carolina, in early October and then conducted sea trials in the Bahama Islands for the remainder of the month.

Records describe frequent fires and reactor scrams, life-support oxygenation failures, and crewmembers on speed to maintain stamina.

Between missions, crewmembers had participated in makeshift target practice on mudflats near the base, or indulged in recreational marijuana contrary to naval regulations (and possibly as a scheme to make themselves ineligible for duty).

Although most submarines are isolated from surface weather by boundary layer effects, the typhoon was sufficiently strong to shake Seawolf so that her skegs dug into the seabed, and clog the reactor heat exchanger with sand.

[citation needed] In April 1986, Seawolf conducted her last Western Pacific deployment and returned to Mare Island in June 1986 to prepare for decommissioning.