Stern quarter view of EML Lembit, underway while in service.
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History | |
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Estonia | |
Name | Lembit |
Namesake | Lembitu |
Ordered | 12 December 1934 |
Builder | Vickers-Armstrongs |
Laid down | 19 June 1935 |
Launched | 7 July 1936 13:07 |
Commissioned | 14 May 1937 |
In service | 1937 - 1940 |
Homeport | Tallinn |
Motto | "Vääri oma nime" ("Be worthy of your name") |
Captured | Soviet Union in 1940 |
Soviet Union | |
Name | Lembit |
In service | 1940 - 1979 |
Out of service | 1979 |
Homeport | Tallinn, Leningrad |
Nickname(s) | "Immortal submarine" |
Honours and awards | Order of Red Banner (1945) |
Captured | From Estonia in 1940 |
Fate | Museum ship from 1979 - Estonian Maritime Museum, but still guarded by the Soviet Navy |
Estonia | |
Name | Lembit |
Operator | Estonian Maritime Museum |
Acquired | From the Soviet Navy, on 27 April 1992 |
Recommissioned | (Honorary) "Estonian Navy vessel nr.1" as of 2 August 1994 |
Decommissioned | 19 May 2011 |
Homeport | Tallinn |
Honours and awards | Estonian Navy vessel nr.1 (1994) |
Fate | Pulled out of water on 21 May 2011, restored and now in a museum building. |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Kalev-class submarine |
Tonnage | 570 (in its current condition) |
Displacement |
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Length | 59.5 m (195 ft 3 in) |
Beam | 7.5 m (25 ft) 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in) |
Draught | 3.6 m (12 ft) 3.6 m (11 ft 10 in) |
Propulsion |
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Speed |
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Test depth | 120 m (390 ft) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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EML Lembit is one of two Kalev-class mine-laying submarines built for the Republic of Estonia before World War II, and is now a museum ship in Tallinn. She was launched in 1936 at Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, and served in the Estonian Navy and the Soviet Navy. Until she was hauled out on 21 May 2011, Lembit was the oldest submarine still afloat in the world.[citation needed] Her sister ship, Kalev, was sunk in October 1941. Lembit is named for Lembitu, an Estonian ruler who resisted the Livonian Crusades.