May 6, 2026: It was recently revealed one of the earliest Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines will be inactivated after waiting more than a decade for an overhaul.

USS Boise/SSN 764, currently in a drydock at the Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, had been scheduled for a regular overhaul in 2016. While waiting for a slot at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Va., the 34-year-old submarine lost its dive certification in 2017. After years at the pier, the Navy decided to enlist HII/Huntington Ingalls Industries to repair the submarine at Newport News. The boat was towed to Newport in 2018, back to Naval Station Norfolk and back again to Newport in 2020. From then, Boise waited until the service awarded a $1.2 billion contract to HII for the work in 2024. Combined, the Navy has invested about $1.6 billion in Boise.

Currently, after 11 years of doing nothing on the Boise, the Navy intends to inactivate the submarine and focus the resources on other new construction and repair projects. Faced with a ship that has been idle for more than a decade, the cost for the repair versus other efforts wasn’t worth it, the sea service said.

Financial resources and personnel associated with the planned overhaul of the Boise will be redirected to support other Navy priorities, including timely delivery of newer Virginia-class submarines.

HII announced that it would cooperate with the Navy to implement this decision in an efficient, cost-effective way. It was anticipated that there will be no impact to our workforce and will shift shipbuilders currently assigned to Boise to other work underway at Newport News Shipbuilding. Boise has been the public emblem of the service’s submarine maintenance backlog in its four public shipyards that focus on work in order of ballistic-missile submarines, aircraft carriers and attack submarines. In 2021 the backlog for submarines at the four public shipyards was due to maintenance availability getting longer and not enough workers at the public yards.

On average, after overhauls, Virginia-class submarines have returned to operations almost nine months later than expected, on average. Los Angeles-class submarines have taken four and a half months longer than scheduled, on average, to return to the fleet. As a result, some submarines have missed deployments or had their deployments at sea shortened. The delays have reduced the number of submarines that the Navy can put to sea, idling expensive ships and their skilled crews.

While the Navy has made efforts to improve workforce and schedules in the public yards, the fundamental problems at the shipyards have continued to linger.

The Navy has selected private yards including HII Newport News and GD\General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut to take on maintenance availability in addition to submarine construction.

GD Electric Boat completed a three-year overhaul on USS Montpelier\SSN 765) in 2019 and was awarded a contract in 2022 to repair USS Hartford\SSN 768, which is continuing. Newport News Shipbuilding was awarded work for USS Helena\SSN-725 which was delivered in 2022 and USS Columbus\SSN 762, which is ongoing, as well as Boise.

Work at the private yards has been more expensive than the public yards with the shipyards hiring repair workers who have a different skill set than new construction workers.

The same workers that weren’t repairing Boise aren’t the same people that are going to build new submarines. It was agreed that the Navy’s decision to redirect the resources to repairing submarines that could stay in the fleet longer with the same level of resources.