SUBSIM Radio Room Forums



SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997

Go Back   SUBSIM Radio Room Forums > General > General Topics
Forget password? Reset here

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-18-12, 09:32 AM   #1
diluvian
A-ganger
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 39
Downloads: 71
Uploads: 0
Default Complete Civil War submarine unveiled for first time

"(Reuters) - Confederate Civil War vessel H.L. Hunley, the world's first successful combat submarine when it sank a Union ship in 1864, was unveiled in full and unobstructed for the first time on Thursday, capping a decade of careful preservation. "No one alive has ever seen the Hunley complete. We're going to see it today," said engineer John King as a crane at a Charleston conservation laboratory slowly lifted a massive steel truss covering the top of the submarine.



A member of the conservation crew walks beside the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina January 12, 2012.
REUTERS/Randall Hill

About 20 engineers and scientists applauded as they caught the first glimpse of the intact 42-foot-long narrow iron cylinder, which was raised from the ocean floor near Charleston more than a decade ago. The public will see the same view but in a water tank to keep it from rusting.
"It's like looking at the sub for the first time. It's like the end of a long night," said Paul Mardikian, senior conservator since 1999 of the project to raise, excavate and conserve the Hunley.
In the summer of 2000, an expedition led by adventurer Clive Cussler raised the Hunley and delivered it to the conservatory on Charleston's old Navy base, where it sat in a 90,000-gallon tank of fresh water to leech salt out of its iron hull.


Senior conservator Paul Mardikian wets down the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley after it was freed of the steel truss that was used to raise it from the ocean floor in 2000 at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina January 12, 2012.
REUTERS/Randall Hill


On weekdays, scientists drain the tank and work on the sub. On weekends, tourists who before this week could only see an obstructed view of the vessel in the water tank, now will be able to see it unimpeded.
Considered the Confederacy's stealth weapon, the Hunley sank the Union warship Housatonic in winter 1864, and then disappeared with all eight Confederate sailors inside.

The narrow, top-secret "torpedo fish," built in Mobile, Alabama by Horace Hunley from cast iron and wrought iron with a hand-cranked propeller, arrived in Charleston in 1863 while the city was under siege by Union troops and ships. In the ensuing few months, it sank twice after sea trial accidents, killing 13 crew members including Horace Hunley, who was steering. "There are historical references that the bodies of one crew had to be cut into pieces to remove them from the submarine," Mardikian told Reuters. "There was forensic evidence when they found the bones (between 1993 and 2004 in a Confederate graveyard beneath a football stadium in Charleston) that that was true. "The Confederate Navy hauled the sub up twice, recovered the bodies of the crew, and planned a winter attack.

On the night of February 17, 1864, its captain and seven crew left Sullivan's Island near Charleston, and hand-powered the sub to the Union warship four miles offshore. From a metal spar on its bow, the Hunley planted a 135-pound torpedo in the hull of the ship, which burned and sank.
Some historians say that the submarine showed a mission-accomplished lantern signal from its hatch to troops back on shore before it disappeared.
Mardikian has the lantern, which archaeologists found in the submarine more than a century later, in his laboratory.

Scientists removed 10 tons of sediment from the submarine, along with the bones, skulls and even brain matter of the crew members, Mardikian told Reuters. They also found fabric and sailors' personal belongings.
Facial reconstructions were made of each member of the third and final crew. They are displayed along with other artifacts in a museum near the submarine. In a nearby vault is a bent gold coin that archaeologists also found in the submarine. It was carried by the sub's captain, Lieutenant George Dixon, for good luck after it stopped a bullet from entering his leg during the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.


An interior view of the Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, South Carolina January 12, 2012.
REUTERS/Randall Hill


"The submarine was a perfect time capsule of everything inside," said Ben Rennison, one of three maritime archaeologists on the project.
The Hunley Project is a partnership among the South Carolina Hunley Commission, Clemson University Restoration Institute, the Naval Historical Center and the nonprofit Friends of the Hunley. The nonprofit group raised and spent $22 million on the project through 2010, a spokeswoman told Reuters.

The next phase of the project will be to remove corrosion on the iron hull and reveal the submarine's skin, preserve it with chemicals, and eventually display it in open air, Mardikian said.
Scientists have found the vessel to be a more sophisticated feat of engineering than historians had thought, said Michael Drews, director of Clemson's Warren Lasch Conservation Center. "It has the ballast tanks fore and aft, the dive planes were counterbalanced, the propeller was shrouded," Drews said. "It's just got all of the elements that the modern submarines have, updated."

There were previous submarines, Drews said, but the Hunley, designed to sail in the open ocean and built for warfare, was cutting-edge technology at the time. "Dixon's mission was to attack and sink an enemy ship and he did," Drews said. "At that particular time, the mindset of naval warfare was, basically, big ships sink little ships. Little ships do not sink big ships. And the Hunley turned that upside down."
(Editing by Greg McCune)"

Source : Reuters
Link : http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...80C02Y20120113

Last edited by diluvian; 01-18-12 at 10:51 AM.
diluvian is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-18-12, 12:56 PM   #2
Osmium Steele
Ace of the Deep
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Upper midwest USA
Posts: 1,101
Downloads: 22
Uploads: 0


Default

I'd give precious body parts to be on the restoration crew.

I WILL make the pilgimage when it goes on open air display.

Thanks for the post!
__________________
In the month of July of the year 1348, between the feasts of St. Benedict and of St. Swithin,
a strange thing came upon England...


My U297 build thread
Osmium Steele is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-18-12, 04:08 PM   #3
u crank
Old enough to know better
 
u crank's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Prince Edward Island
Posts: 11,612
Downloads: 136
Uploads: 0


Default

So this is how it all began.

Great post, very interesting read.
__________________

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

― Arthur C. Clarke




u crank is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
civil, confederate, hunley, submarine, war


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:57 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2024 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.