Navy Electronics Laboratory events—the submerged voyage of USS "Nautilus" from the Pacific to the Atlantic, via the North Pole, in 1958, with NEL’s Dr. Waldo Lyon aboard as chief scientist and ice pilot. That same summer, the USS "Skate" cruised from the Atlantic to the North Pole and the central Arctic Ocean, surfacing 9 times through small holes in the ice cap. Dr. Eugene C. La Fond, head of NEL's Oceanography Branch, was chief scientist In March 1959, the "Skate" returned to the Arctic, under winter conditions, with Dr. Waldo Lyon as chief scientist, and for the first time, the nuclear submarine was
Sail (submarine) Sail (submarine) In naval parlance, the sail (American usage) or fin (European/Commonwealth usage) of a submarine is the tower-like structure found on the dorsal (topside) surface of submarines. Submarine sails once housed the conning tower (command and communications data center), the periscope(s), radar and communications masts (antenna), though most of these functions have now been relocated to the hull proper (and so the sail is no longer considered a "conning tower"). In the US Navy, the structure is frequently called a fairwater, and diving planes mounted on it are called fairwater planes. When above the water's surface, the sail serves