The Glomar Explorer was built for the CIA, to enable them to salvage a soviet submarine lying three miles beneath the surface of the Pacific. See
During the Cold War, the CIA Secretly Plucked a Soviet Submarine From the Ocean Floor Using a Giant Claw (Lila Thulin May 10, 2019
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... 180972154/)
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The ship was too large to pass through the Panama Canal, and had to sail around South America:
After some minor foibles (the U.S.-assisted 1973 Chilean coup happened the same day as seven technicians were trying to board the ship in the country’s port city of Valparaíso), the Glomar Explorer arrived in Long Beach, California, where it loaded more than 20 vans full of equipment (including a darkroom, paper processing, nuclear waste handling) for analyzing the K-129’s contents.
Townsend's SIL, George told me of a curious to him incident that occurred around this time. It seems that a submarine surfaced in the Catalina harbor, and George was tasked with ferrying Townsend to it from the town dock. I suspect the "submarine" was actually the submersible barge, the Clementine
Meanwhile, a team built the claw (nicknamed “Clementine” and formally known as the “capture vehicle”) in a gargantuan floating barge called HMB-1 in Redwood City. In the spring of 1974, HMB-1 submerged and met up with the Glomar Explorer off the coast of Catalina Island in southern California.
The code name for the project was long thought to be Jennifer, but it was actually Project Azorian. Jennifer referred to the security procedures. Linda always felt that the name was chosen by Townsend in honor of his new granddaughter.
