The upper part of the USS Jacksonville's sail arrived on a trailer while another truck carried the fairwater planes once attached to it.. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on September 16, 2026 at 3:37 pm
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Streaked with rust and crusted with barnacles, key parts of a submarine named after the city of Jacksonville arrived Downtown on Wednesday.
Now the final part of the journey begins: restoring the sail, rudders and other pieces of the USS Jacksonville for display with the USS Orleck and the Jacksonville Naval Museum on Downtown’s riverfront.
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Bring The Sail 2 Jax is the nonprofit group that accepted the submarine section and arranged its transport here from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. The arrival culminated a five-year effort to bring the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine to its namesake city.
The submarine’s parts arrived after what looked like a drama-free cross-country move, more or less, organization head Stephen Jorgensen said.
“It took a lot of work to make it drama-free from the outside. There were some hiccups, but we worked through them,” Jorgensen said . “Everybody has just been superb helping us make it go well, including people from the USS Orleck. It looks smooth on the outside and that’s the goal. And I am just super excited that it’s here.”
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Dozens of people watched Wednesday as the USS Jacksonville’s sail structure, fairwater planes and rudder arrived at their temporary berth, a restoration site at the Fincantieri Marine Repair Shipyard on East Adams Street.
Among the observers was Ray Nourse, who served on the submarine from 1978 to 1983 and drove from Atlanta to see it.
“The fact that she was named after Jacksonville, and Jacksonville’s only had one ship named after her, the fact that she is home is a momentous occasion,” Nourse said. “I’m a plank owner and proud of the boat. It was the only boat I served on, and I am only a few hours away, so I am down here and it’s important.”
Commissioned on May 16, 1981, the submarine was nicknamed “The Bold One,” a take on the city’s slogan, “The Bold New City of the South.” The submarine’s crest featured Andrew Jackson on horseback on a modified version of Jacksonville’s city seal.
Measuring 360 feet in length, the nuclear-powered USS Jacksonville could carry its crew of 12 officers and 100 enlisted personnel at speeds of over 36 mph submerged. And within its cigar-shaped hull, it carried Mk 48 torpedoes, plus Tomahawk cruise missiles.
After 40 years of service, it was decommissioned in 2021. But long before that, Jorgensen and others who served on the submarine began thinking of ways to get significant parts of it to Jacksonville for display. Jorgensen was part of the submarine’s early life as a member of its commissioning crew from 1978 to 1982.
Then plans began in 2014 during a reunion of USS Jacksonville sailors, which led to the nonprofit Bring The Sail 2 Jax group.
When the submarine was decommissioned in 2021, Jorgensen salvaged some Jacksonville-related mementos for safekeeping, then requested donation of the sail, rudder and dive planes last year. The Navy approved the donation, then the work began to get the parts here with private donations, as Jacksonville’s Landstar did the move.
“I am looking at about a year or less to reassemble it back to like she was when she was taken apart,” Jorgensen said. “That means the upper and lower portions of the sail will be welded together with fairwater planes in between. We will have the rudder basically cleaned up. We will paint it, pick it up and move it to Shipyards West.”
Also on hand Wednesday was Jim Webb, executive director of the Jacksonville Naval Museum and the restored USS Orleck. A final display site for the restored USS Jacksonville pieces has not been set yet, but one possibility is to arrange them on the pier next to the USS Orleck to look like the submarine is pacing the destroyer at sea.
“We have had engineers making sure that 55 tons will be supported on the pier, which is the weight of the sail, rudder assembly and fairwater planes,” Webb said. “It is going to be a lot more fun than seeing the submarine model, right now in the City Hall lobby.”
The effort to bring the USS Jacksonville here wasn’t the first time local groups have tried to get a Navy ship displayed in a city that has two naval bases. Plans to bring the USS Saratoga to Jacksonville as a museum ship failed in 1995, and the Navy decided not to donate the USS Charles Adams to the Florida Historic Naval Ship Association in 2018.
Now the city has its second Navy vessel, or parts of it, for historic display. City Council member Chris Miller got a closer look at the sail and rudder before they rolled into the shipyard.
“It’s a great thing,” the Army veteran said. “It’s our namesake. This submarine represented not only our country all over the world, but it represented Jacksonville, Florida. There’s no better thing to save this history associated with this amazing submarine.”
Reassembling and restoring the sail, rudder and other parts, then putting it at the USS Orleck will take about a year and another $2 million, Jorgensen estimated. A fundraiser has been set up at the Bring The Sail 2 Jax website.
