Jean Dixon's Predictions
It was traditional for the famous celebrity astrologer, Jean Dixon, to make predictions for the upcoming year, and have them published in December. What made these predictions interesting to us was that they included something about submarines.
She predicted that in the up coming year, a submarine in overhaul at Electric Boat Shipyard would be lost with all hands while on sea trials, ala USS Thresher. That ship’s hull number would add up to 13 (always a lucky number).
Now, the ships in overhaul at EB at the time were USS Nautilus, SSN 571 (13), USS Dace, SSN 607 (13), USS Lafayette, SSBN 616 (13), USS Andrew Jackson SSBN 619 (16), and USS Glenard P. Lipscomb SSN 685 (19). Lipscomb was new construction, but I doubt that Jean knew the difference between overhaul sea trials and new construction sea trials.
So in the new year, Nautilus had moved between EB and the sub base several times. She would move to the sub base and prepare for sea trials, break something big, then move back to EB to get fixed. At long last she was finally leaving for sea trials. While backing way from the pier, a tugboat ran over her stern and took out one propeller and a stern plane. While the tugboats were trying to wrestle her back to the pier, another tug boat ran over her propeller and stern plane on the other side. I don’t think that she ever went to sea again after that.
Dace successfully made it to sea trials and while returning submerged at PD, collided with a commercial fishing boat somewhere east of Block Island. She returned to EB long after dark with large canvas tarps over her sail. The Coast Guard found her anyway.
Lafayette tried several times to go on sea trials, but every time they tried to leave, enough of the crew failed to show up that they had to reschedule. They finally had to confine the entire crew to the ship for a week in advance of sea trial departure.
Lipscomb had uneventful sea trials. Rickover rode her. How could anything bad happen when you have “god” onboard.
Andrew Jackson lifted a relief valve on sanitary tank #1 at test depth, but other than that, no problems.
So much for Jean Dixon’s predictions.
Charlie Winterfeldt