Tag Archives: hunley

Hunley’s ‘Other Submarine’ Found (?)

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Known interchangeably as the Pioneer II or American Diver, a consortium of businessmen and engineers composed of Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock, and Baxter Watson constructed a small human-powered submersible in Mobile Bay during the Civil War on their way to producing the final warship (Hunley) which is much better known.

Built in late 1862, the 36-foot vessel was manned by a five-person crew but foundered off Fort Morgan in a sudden squall in February 1863 and was never recovered, leaving Hunley and company to try again.

Lost to time– and long presumed to be buried under tons of mud in the shifting sands of the Bay— a group now thinks they may have found it, just sitting out in the open.

Depths of History and Chaos Divers, in association with historian Shawn Holland– who has been chasing Pioneer II/American Diver as her own white whale for the past 30 years– has even released some images.

While it looks like an old nav buoy to me– and the Bay is surely full of such items after repeated hurricanes over the past few years– the Alabama Historical Commission is apparently getting involved to investigate further.

Update: 

It turned out to be a (surprise surprise) 19th-century bell buoy, which is neat, but not Civil War submarine neat.

Air blast injuries likely killed the crew of the Hunley

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The mystery of the Hunley‘s last crew has been solved. A paper by University of Florida researchers supported by the US Army MURI program and others has come to the conclusion, after repeatedly setting blasts near a scale model of the human-powered submersible, that the crew was killed by the blast wave from their torpedo, crushing their lungs and giving them TBIs. That explains why they were all found at their stations, with no broken bones, and the submarine was relatively intact.

Abstract:

The Hunley set off a 61.2 kg (135 lb) black powder torpedo at a distance less than 5 m (16 ft) off its bow. Scaled experiments were performed that measured black powder and shock tube explosions underwater and propagation of blasts through a model ship hull. This propagation data was used in combination with archival experimental data to evaluate the risk to the crew from their own torpedo. The blast produced likely caused flexion of the ship hull to transmit the blast wave; the secondary wave transmitted inside the crew compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of survival were less than 16% for each crew member. The submarine drifted to its resting place after the crew died of air blast trauma within the hull.

Full study here

Hunley is clean again

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For more than a century, the CSS Hunley rested at the bottom of the ocean just outside Charleston harbor, its crew entombed, its hull gradually encased in hardening encrustations.

When it was raised 15 years ago off South Carolina, it looked more like a barnacled sea monster than the world’s first operational submarine, sunk in battle during the winter of 1864.

The remains of its eight sailors were removed in 2001, but research has continued, and Thursday, a conservation team announced that experts have now removed more than half a ton of the encrustations.

The result: the Hunley has much of the look and menace of a modern sub and is clearly the ancestor of the U-boat and the nuclear submarine of today.

The uncleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, is seen in a photo provided by the group Friends of the Hunley. The sub has recently been cleaned of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

The uncleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, is seen in a photo provided by the group Friends of the Hunley. The sub has recently been cleaned of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

The cleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, cleared of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. The work is being done at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, S.C. The Hunley is considered the 1st submarine in history to sink another warship. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

The cleaned stern of the historic Confederate submarine, CSS Hunley, cleared of the 1,200 pounds of undersea concretions that had accumulated over the 136 years the sunken sub rested on the bottom outside Charleston harbor. The work is being done at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston, S.C. The Hunley is considered the 1st submarine in history to sink another warship. Courtesy of Friends of the Hunley via The Washington Post

More here