Last Stand for Ailing Submarine

Options and time are running out for the submarine Clamagore, but a veterans group is seeking to save the retired U.S. Navy vessel in danger of sinking at Patriots Point.

The group Save the Clamagore has raised just shy of $20,000 online — nearly $5,000 just over the weekend — but millions more may be necessary to keep the diesel-powered sub from sinking, officials say.

The website was set up by the USS Clamagore Veterans Association.

Like other vessels on display in the salt water at the Mount Pleasant museum, the Clamagore’s hull has been compromised by years of corrosion.

It could cost $3 million to repair the vessel, and it’s no cheaper to remove the Clamagore from the water, said Mac Burdette, Patriots Point executive director.

“At the end of the day, we feel with our heart when it comes to the Clamagore, but we have to approach these things from a realistic perspective,” Burdette said. “The most disrespectful outcome could be for us to do nothing and to allow her to turn turtle and sink.”

Burdette said if funds don’t materialize, the Clamagore will be sunk as an artificial reef. Even that option will have some costs, Burdette said, but it makes the most sense. Preservation experts tell Burdette that removing the sub from the water will actually speed up its deterioration.

“If she’s a reef, she serves a new purpose,” Burdette said. “Allowing her to sink here, though, would just be incredibly embarrassing to us and to the State of South Carolina. It would be national news.”

Though it never saw combat, the Clamagore is the last of its kind Guppy Type II submarine still in existence. The vessel sailed from 1945 to 1975. It arrived in Mount Pleasant in 1981. The Clamagore remains on display as Patriots Point decides its future.