Pipe Trouble

The U.S. Navy's first atomic submarine, the $55 million Nautilus, ran into trouble .without leaving the dock. Last month a steam pipe outside the nuclear reactor burst during dockside trials. Last week the Navy learned why. The General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division, which built the Nautilus, had mixed together seamless and welded pipes in its warehouses--and in the Nautilus. Weak welded pipes burst under pressure which would have been withstood by the specified seamless piping. Moreover, it turned out that piping was mixed up too in Electric Boat's second atomic submarine, the Sea Wolf, now abuilding. After a careful checkup, the Navy blamed the trouble not on sabotage but on carelessness. Electric Boat fired the man who slipped up--a warehouse foreman with 42 years' service--and will pay for repairs. But the mistake will delay the Navy's atomic submarine program from three to six months.

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