20,000 leagues under Boston! 20,000 leagues to the grocery store! 20,000 leagues under a clear sky on a nice afternoon hike!?
Yeah, me too, never gave it any thought.
I take it the Triton holds the record for distance traveled, but just about any nuclear sub could beat it if it wanted to, then. I would think if you hypothetically had your own and used a minimal crew, it’d be pretty easy to do it with supplies to spare.
I guess I kind of am wondering about my second question, since I did know Verne’s Nautilus surfaced from time to time. At what point did it become a fact? Seems like a few thousand leagues would have been a not-unusual long patrol for a WWII U-boat, so there may have been some that hit that amount. Anything earlier than that?
The diesel powered U-boats usually traveled on the surface. As far as I know none traveled any significant distance at snorkel depth, let alone fully submerged where they could only use battery power. That was reserved for hunting or escaping from ships that could fight back. Again, that would give the very first “20,000 league under the sea” cruise to the Nautilus.
:smack: Of course that’s true. So I suppose the USS Nautilus really would have been the first that could do it within reason?
That was my thinking too - how many people do you have to have on a nuclear sub if you’re just doing an underwater cruise with no military operations of any kind? What proportion of people on a sub can be left behind without endangering the vessel itself?
golf clap
I’d like to separate the OPs question from related conjecture.
To answer his question: What was the first submarine to go 20,000 leagues under the sea?
Answer: There hasn’t been one yet.
On to the conjecture: what boat could have been the first, and can we do it now?
I’ll answer the second question first. Could we do it now? Most certainly. As had been discussed, the more pressing constraint would be food. Cruising at 20 knots seems reasonable. That’s faster than a sub would normally go, but not approaching top speed. At 20 knots, that’s about 125 days. A normal cruise for a boomer is 70 days, so almost doubling that would be a bit of a feat, but it’s possible. And on a boomer, there is more space than on a fast attack, so you could store enough food. You could push the speed up to 25 knots and do it in 100 days, but at some point you are pushing the plant (and all the associated gear) much harder which could create issues. I doubt that, but it’s a consideration.
Which is the first boat that could have done it? That’s harder. Keep in mind that neither Nautilus nor Triton made their own oxygen. They had to snorkel to get air (they did have pressure tanks to hold oxygen and scrubbers to get the CO2 out). My concern would be that over 125 days, there might be an issue with that system which would probably have to work well outside of design limits for 125 days.
I think the first boat that could have gone the distance would have been USS George Washington SSBN-598 because that’s the first boat (I believe, not 100% sure) that could make its own oxygen and have the space for 125 days worth of food.
On the reduced crew issue: I’d be careful with that. While a torpedoman for example might not appear to be needed, he does maintains the tube and associated equipment. Having that guy around if there is a problem with that equipment would be necessary. You could cut some, but perhaps not as many as you might think.
I googled “longest submarine patrol” and got these two entries:
http://www.cpf.navy.mil/news.aspx/030416 (USS Pennsylvania: 140 days, but no mileage given)
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2013/may/20/130520-hms-trenchant-home
(HMS Trenchant: 11 month deployment, 38,800 total miles, 130 days longest “at sea” period between port visits.)
I don’t get it.
This. They traveled 20k leagues, but not all as one submerged journey. Which has nothing much to do with the OP’s question but is worth noting.
Well, if we are going for the record and not for military value per se, you could certainly cut out a good deal of the crew and equipment. Less food to be used, and more places to store additional food. You don’t need those nuclear warheads just for a cruise, do you? Store some food in there instead. No need for a regiment of combat Marines or a SEAL team, and no great need for redundant repair teams. If you get in really big trouble, just surface, call for help, and try again for the record next year.
There is some possibility this has been done and the information kept classified. However that seems less likely based on the records made public already.
FWIW, this is almost twice as long as a normal deterrent patrol (77 days) for USN SSBNs, per this 2007 paper on crew rotation from the Congressional Budget Office. The impression I have from reading papers like the above, is that asset utilization, crew rotation, and vessel maintenance schedules for USN ballistic missile submarines is very precisely scheduled: the USN doesn’t double the length of a deterrent patrol for the hell of it. Accordingly, I am trying to think of what the Navy was trying to show or figure out by doing that. Doubt I’ll hear why soon; it’s not called the Silent Service for nothing.
As to the OP, while no vessel to my knowledge has done a 60,000 statute mile journey entirely underwater, if the USS Pennsylvania mentioned in mlees’s post had wished to do so, it would have needed to maintain not quite 18 miles per hour or around 15.5 knots for the duration of their 140 day patrol. Whether it could do so is probably another of those questions the Navy won’t answer, though 15.5 kts is a lot slower that what I thought it’d take before I made the estimate.
So they only did it once? In 1960?
How long did it take?
a regiment of combat Marines ?? The entire crew is less than 200.
60 days and 21 hours.
Former submariner here…
The longest that I’ve been on deployment without a port visit or resupply was about 4 months on a fast-attack submarine. By the end of this period, we were seriously getting low on food, and getting meals like chili mac with a side of canned beets. However, we could have carried significantly more canned food if we were trying to set a record. We were generally prohibited from storing food in the engineering spaces, which actually make up about 2/3 of the boat for a fast-attack submarine like I was on. A boomer would have significantly more room.
As for reducing crew, note that most of the crew is needed just to safely operate and maintain the submarine. For example, not only do the sonar operators and fire controlmen track other vessels that may be “targets,” they also track other vessels so that we don’t run into them. 
**Spifflog ** already mentioned that it might be a good idea to have even torpedomen aboard in case there was an issue with a torpedo tube. Also, torpedomen, like the rest of the crew, are trained in damage control.
As for SEALS and Marines, they are easy enough to leave behind. Neither are routinely brought along, anyway.
As for “redundant” repair teams, there are no dedicated repair teams anyway. Personnel are trained to operate, maintain, and repair equipment. If you are leaving repair personnel behind, you are also leaving operators behind.
Not to mention the fact that some casualties require a lot of people to combat, like fires or flooding. Personally, I would not want to be aboard a seriously undermanned submarine.
Finally, I made some high-speed runs across the Atlantic in which we traveled at flank (max) speed for days on end. The reactor and propulsion plant are actually designed to operate at maximum output indefinitely.
Kind of hard to fathom, isn’t it?
I have a question, sir. Is it possible to UNREP a submarine?
It’s a fairly routine for the surface ships.
How about re-supply while under weigh? Could a sub come near (but still below) the surface, and have a scuba diver deliver a big pallet of fresh cans through a lock? I assume that subs do have some sort of lock that can be accessed while submerged.