The Dolfijn class submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s of the Royal Netherlands Navy

Royal Netherlands Navy

The Koninklijke Marine is the navy of the Netherlands. In the mid-17th century the Dutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world and it played an active role in the wars of the Dutch Republic and later those of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 are a class of four submarines, the Dolfijn, Zeehond, Potvis and Tonijn, Which were built in the late 1950s and the early 1960s. They were the first indigenous submarines built for the Netherlands Navy after World War II.

Design

The Dolfijn class is a special Dutch design and has three separate pressure hulls arranged in a triangle and enclosed in external steel casing. The upper hull for the living/working part of the crew and the lower two hulls were for the engines, batteries and storage rooms. This allows the submarine to dive much deeper than other submarines from the late 1950s, with a maximum diving depth of 200 m. The designer was F Gunning.

The order for second group of boats, also known as the Potvis class was postponed in the late 1950s while the possibility of building a nuclear powered submarine was considered and rejected. The order for two boats was re-instated in 1962. These boats had their diesels replaced and electronics updated in 1978-79.

The Zeehond was converted into a trials ship by RDM shipyard in Rotterdam in 1990 and used as a technology demonstrator for a closed cycle diesel air independent propulsion system until 1994.

The Boats

Ship	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Fate
S808 Dolfjin	Rotterdam DD	30 December 1954	20 May 1959	16 December 1960	Broken up 1985
S809 Zeehond	Rotterdam DD	30 December 1954	20 February 1960	16 March 1961	Test ship 1990, Scrapped 1997
S 804 Potvis	Wilton - Fijenoord, Schiedam	17 September 1962	12 January 1965	2 November 1965	Decommissioned 1992, Broken up 1994
S805 Tonjin	Wilton - Fijenoord, Schiedam	27 November 1962	14 June 1965 1965	24 February 1966	Decommissioned 1991, preserved in the Dutch Navy Museum Dutch Navy Museum The Dutch Navy Museum is a naval museum in Den Helder, Netherlands.The museum is dedicated to the history of the Koninklijke Marine ....  in Den Helder Den Helder Den Helder is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula... .