North Charleston training submarine apparently spotted being towed through harbor

Image by North Charleston The USS Daniel Webster being towed back to the Naval Weapons Station in 2010 after going to Virginia for repairs.

Update: The ship was indeed being towed back after receiving more repairs at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia. 

First reporting: A submarine bearing the identifying number of the USS Daniel Webster, 626, was spotted on Friday afternoon being towed through the Charleston harbor.

Post and Courier photographer Grace Beahm snapped a shot (see it here).

The Webster is a 425-foot nuclear submarine that, as you can tell by the lead photo, has a number of years to its age; it was launched in 1963 and decommissioned in 1990.

After that, the ship was brought to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Unit Charleston where it was moored and used as a training vessel. 

The latest knowledge is that the submarine is one of two at the school, the second being the USS Sam Rayburn (MTS-635) that was also a Lafayette-class nuclear submarine.

Those two ships are expected to leave Charleston as the training school expands, and are to be replaced by newer Los Angeles-class submarines launched in 1979, the USS La Jolla and the USS San Francisco

The later of those two being the ship that struck an undersea mountain in 2005.

It's not clear if the Webster is due to return, and if so, where the ship might be headed. The Webster was also spotted in the harbor back in 2011.

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