HMS Ocelot (S17): The Last Vessel Built at Chatham

The Last Ship of Chatham Dockyard

HMS Ocelot was built at Chatham Dockyard, launched on 5 May 1962 and commissioned on 31 January 1964, an Oberon-class diesel-electric submarine and, remarkably, the last Royal Navy warship built there, though the yard went on to complete three further Oberon-class boats for the Royal Canadian Navy before shipbuilding at Chatham finally ended with the launch of HMCS Okanagan in 1966.

She displaced 1,610 tons standard and 2,410 tons submerged, armed with eight 21-inch torpedo tubes carrying 24 torpedoes, and crewed by 68 officers and ratings.

Clandestine Cold War Work

Ocelot joined the 3rd Submarine Squadron at Faslane for her first three years in service, and during the 1960s took part in clandestine operations, the kind of quietly sensitive Cold War work that Oberon-class boats became particularly well suited to, thanks to their exceptional quietness underwater. She also took her place in the 1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review as part of the Submarine Flotilla.

Preserved at the Dockyard That Built Her

HMS Ocelot paid off in August 1991 and was sold in 1992, but rather than being scrapped, she was preserved as a museum ship at Chatham Historic Dockyard, the very yard where she had been launched three decades earlier, a fitting homecoming. Her interior was even added to Google Street View in November 2013, letting visitors explore the cramped world of a Cold War submariner from their own computer.