USS Hammerhead SSN-663 Submarine Model. Dive again with your shipmates in this USS Hammerhead SSN-663 Submarine Model. Each piece is carved from wood and hand painted to provide a piece you’ll love. Length – 20 inches. The product is not intended to be used by children 12 years and younger. Construction and commissioning The contract to build Hammerhead was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia, on 28 May 1964 and her keel was laid down there on 29 November 1965. She was launched on 14 April 1967, sponsored by Mrs. Clark Fisher, and commissioned on 28 June 1968 with Commander E. Tom Clancy, author of the 1984 novel The Hunt for Red October, was given a brief ride into port aboard Hammerhead in the late 1980s prior to the filming of the 1990 film adaptation of the novel, also entitled The Hunt for Red October. After spotting a mounted roll of toilet paper in Hammerhead’s sonar room used for wiping grease pencil markings off the screens in the rooms, he proclaimed his intention to write the contrasting image of the low-technology toilet paper mount among all of the complicated electronics and other equipment aboard Hammerhead into the film. True to his word, he did. Decommissioning and disposal Hammerhead, under the command of Commander Forrest Novacek, was decommissioned on 5 April 1995 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on the same day.