Rechinul was a
minelaying submarine, designed by
Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (IvS), and built at the Galați shipyard in Romania. She was laid down in 1938 and launched on 22 May 1941. She had the same power plant as her sister ship, with a slightly faster surface top speed of 17 knots, due to her standard (surfaced) displacement of 585 tons (35 tons lighter than her sister). Her submerged top speed was however the same, 9 knots. She was armed with four 533 mm torpedo tubes, one 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, and could carry up to 40 mines.
Rechinul's career was more eventful than her sister's, as she carried out two patrol missions. Her first mission took place during the 1944
evacuation of the Crimea, between 20 April and 15 May. Initially, she was only tasked with patrolling the Turkish coast, but on 30 April, she was tasked with the surveillance of the Soviet port of Batumi. The information on Soviet naval movements she transmitted during her mission proved to be very useful to the German and Romanian ships which were carrying out the evacuation of
Sevastopol. Her second and last mission consisted in a patrol off the Soviet port of
Novorossyisk, between 15 June and 27 July. She was heavily pursued and hunted by Soviet forces, but just like her sister, she managed to return to
Constanța without any losses. This was the last Romanian submarine patrol of the war, and with a length of over 40 days, the longest in Romanian submarine history. ==Fate==