For the last 15 years, the Soviet-era Foxtrot-class diesel-electric submarine B-39 has been a museum ship at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Now, with its outer hull deteriorating, the museum has decided to scrap the retired attack submarine. 

Stars and Stripes reports that museum officials said the sub is not as bad as it looks — that the pressure hull remains stable, making B-39 as seaworthy as it was when it debuted at the Embarcadero in 2005.

“But that doesn’t make its condition cosmetically acceptable in so prominent a location,” said Raymond Ashley, president and CEO of the museum.

It detracts, he added, from the beauty of the other ships in the museum’s collection. They include the iron-hulled sailing ship Star of India, the steam ferry Berkeley, the replica frigate HMS Surprise, and another submarine, the USS Dolphin.

So B-39, closed to the public since the coronavirus pandemic started more than a year ago, is headed to Ensenada, Mexico, where it will be scrapped and recycled, Ashley said. The museum is awaiting approval from the U.S. Coast Guard for a towing permit.

Commissioned in 1967, the 295′ long submarine B-39 was one of the Soviet Navy’s largest non-nuclear submarines and among the largest conventionally powered submarines ever built.

Low-tech but lethal, she carried 24 torpedoes while she was on patrol-some capable of delivering low-yield nuclear warheads. B-39 carried a crew of 78 and could dive to a depth of 985 feet.