Nautilus submarine (1800) from
Wikipedia
Nautilus, first tested in 1800, is often considered
the first practical submarine, though preceded by Cornelius Drebbel's of
1620.
Background
The Nautilus was designed between 1793 and 1797
by the American inventor Robert Fulton, then living in the French First
Republic. He proposed to the Directory that they subsidize its construction
as a means to balance British seapower, but he was turned down. His second
proposal to them was that he be paid nothing until the Nautilus had sunk
British shipping, and then only a small percentage of the prize money.
Again, the design was rejected. Fulton directed his next proposal to the
Minister of Marine, who finally granted him permission to build.
Construction
Fulton built the first Nautilus at the Perrier
boatyard in Rouen of copper sheets over iron ribs. It was 21 ft 3 in (6.48
m) long and 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) in the beam. Propulsion was provided by
a hand-cranked screw propeller. Her hollow iron keel was her ballast tank,
flooded and emptied to change her buoyancy. Two horizontal fins on the
stubby horizontal rudder controlled angle of dive -- the origin of the
diving planes used on all modern submarines. It resembled a modern research
submarine in shape -- a long teardrop with an observation dome we would
call a conning tower. When surfaced, a fan-shaped collapsible sail, looking
rather Chinese, provided propulsion. Air, other than that enclosed, was
provided by a waterproofed leather snorkel tube
It was always designed to carry a "carcass", as
Fulton called his dragged mines. A device on the top of the dome drove
a spiked eye into the enemy's wooden hull. The submarine then released
its mine on a line that went through the eye. The submarine sped away,
and only when the long line had paid out would the mine strike the target
hull and explode by a detonator. The mines were nothing like a self-propelled
torpedo: They were variously-sized copper cylinders carrying ten to two
hundred pounds of gunpowder, triggered by a gunlock mechanism that went
off on contact with the hull.
Nautilus was first tested, with constant success,
in dives in the Seine at Rouen, in the Saint-Gervais dock, beginning July
29, 1800. As the river |
Full-sized section model at Cité
de la Mer,
Cherbourg, France
Length: |
21 ft 3 in |
Beam: |
6 ft 4 in |
|
The Nautilus (1800). |
current interfered with some tests, Fulton took the
boat to Le Havre to work in the quiet salt water of the harbor. He tested
endurance with a candle lit, and found the flame did not challenge
the air capacity of the snorkel. He tested the speed of his two men cranking
against two men rowing on the surface, and Nautilus covered the 360 ft
(110 m) course two minutes faster. During this time he changed the rudder,
and the screw propeller to one with four vanes like a windmill.
Through friends like Gaspard Monge and Pierre-Simon
Laplace, Fulton obtained an interview with Napoleon, but nothing came of
it. However, the Minister of Marine was by Fulton's friends pushed into
appointing a scholarly panel to assess the submarine, to consist of Volney,
Monge, and Laplace.
On July 3, 1801 at Le Havre, Fulton took down
the revised Nautilus to the then-remarkable depth of 25 feet (7.6 m). With
his three crewmen and two candles burning he remained for an hour without
difficulty. Adding a copper "bomb" (globe) containing 200 ft3 (5.7m3) of
air extended the time underwater for the crew for at least four and a half
hours. However, one of the renovations included a 1.5 in (38 mm) diameter
glass in the dome, whose light he found sufficient for reading a watch,
making candles during daylight activities unnecessary. Speed trials put
Nautilus at two knots on the surface, and covering 400m in 7 min. He also
discovered that compasses worked underwater exactly as on the surface.
The first trial of a carcass destroyed a 40-foot
sloop provided by the Admiralty. Fulton suggested that not only should
they be used against specific ships by submarines, but be set floating
into harbors and into estuaries with the tide to wreak havoc at random.
|
Commemorative plaque in the
Port of Rouen |
The overseeing committee enthusiastically recommended
the building of two brass subs, 36 ft (11 m) long, 12 ft (3.7 m) wide,
with a crew of eight, and air for eight hours of submersion.
In September, Napoleon expressed interest in seeing
the Nautilus, only to find that, as it had leaked badly, Fulton had her
dismantled and the more important bits destroyed at the end of the tests.
Despite the many reports of success by reliable witnesses like the Prefect
Marine of Brest, Napoleon decided Fulton was a swindler and charlatan.
The French navy had no enthusiasm for a weapon they preferred to think
suicidal for the crews (though Fulton had no problems). Certainly, it would
be overwhelmingly destructive for conventional ships.
Planned second vessel
Though knowing the French had no further interest,
the British preferred to keep a control on this dangerous device by paying
Fulton £800 to come to England (to which had been going before France)
and develop a second Nautilus for them. The victory at Trafalgar made his
work no longer a danger, and he was ignored until he left, in frustration,
for America in October 1806. He left his papers on submarines with the
American consul in London. He never asked for them, never referred to his
Nautilus work, and the papers went unpublished until 1920.
These show that his British Nautilus was planned
as a 35 ft (11 m) long, 10 ft (3.0 m) beam sea-going boat with a crew of
six, to be provisioned for 20 days at sea. The upper surface was provided
with 30 carcass compartments. The hull was to imitate a sea-going sloop
with |
A cross-section of Fulton's 1806
submarine design. |
conventional-looking mast and sails that could be
lowered and unstepped for submersion. Her two-bladed propeller, still hand-cranked,
folded up out of the water when surfaced to reduce drag. When submerged,
air came through two streamlined ventilation pipes, and light from the
conning tower. However, nothing of it was actually constructed. |