PCU Colorado returned from sea trials on August 30 completing both the Alpha and Bravo trials. The first phase, Alpha Trials, lasted from 19th to the 22nd and included a range of submarine and propulsion-plant operations, submerging for the first time, and high-speed runs on and below the surface to demonstrate that the ship’s propulsion plant is fully mission-capable.The trials were directed by U.S. Navy Adm. James F. Caldwell Jr., Director – Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. Also participating in the sea trials were Capt. Jeffrey Heydon, supervisor of shipbuilding in Groton; and Jeffrey S. Geiger, president of Electric Boat. 

PCU COLORADO underway on Alpha Trials, August 19, 2017. Photo by Electric Boat

The crew preformed extremely well testing the boat to it’s design limits. After an inport period, the boat will return to sea for an inspection with the Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV), which is the last major step before a ship is certified ready to be delivered to the Navy. Congratulations COLORADO!

Coincidentally, as SSN 788 completed her sea trials on August 30th, that day also marks 94 years since the commissioning of USS Colorado (BB-45). Their alumni association’s website notes:

“Thus in 1921, the third in the COLORADO lineage of fighting ships became the cynosure of international relations. The world saw the epitome of floating potency. Two years of fitting out elapsed between the 1921 launching of USS COLORADO (BB-45) and her commissioning on August 30, 1923. Captain Reginald Rowan Belknap (Annapolis ’91), veteran of the Spanish-American and World Wars, the Philippine Insurrection and the Boxer Rebellion, was ordered to command this newest addition the United States Fleet, the last such addition for many years in accordance with the Naval treaty.”

For more about BB-45 visit the USS Colorado Alumni Association  website.

Some additional pictures of COLORADO underway by Toni Franklin and Mary Keyes