The USS Bluefish (SSN-675), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the bluefish. The USS Bluefish's construction contract was given to General Dynamics Corporation's Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut, on 15 July 1966, and its keel was put down there on 13 March 1968. It was launched on January 10, 1970, sponsored by Mrs. David Packard, and commissioned on January 8, 1971, under the leadership of Commander Richard A. Peterson. The USS Bluefish (SSN-675) may have been the only Sturgeon class submarine to circumnavigate the globe during an extended patrol in the Indian Ocean in 1982. It was designed for stealth and surveillance and was an integral part of the US NAVY's strategic defense during the height of the Cold War. Between World War II and the late 1970s, asbestos was widely employed as a thermal and fire insulator, and it may still be found in gaskets, pipelines, boilers, electrical fittings, bulkheads, and walls. Any damage to the pipe coatings required service members to remove the old insulation and replace it with new wrappings. The process involved mixing dry asbestos with water to make a new insulation coating. This activity released a lot of asbestos dust.
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