Title: Nautilus Found!
Description: Captain Nemo's Water World
Description: Captain Nemo's Water World
Captain Nemo - June 14, 2005 12:13 PM (GMT)
Sub-hunter stumbles on real-life Nautilus
The Times
07jun05
PANAMA: A British explorer has found an early submarine he believes was the inspiration for Nautilus, Captain Nemo's vessel in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.
Colonel John Blashford-Snell discovered the half-submerged, cast-iron wreck off the coast of Panama.
It was built in 1864 by a visionary craftsman, Julius Kroehl, for the Union forces during the American Civil War. But the boat, called Explorer, was never used in the conflict and was subsequently taken to Panama to harvest pearls.
It was ideal for this purpose because of a unique lock-out system, identical to the one in the Nautilus from Verne's book, published in 1870. The lock-out system is a reversible air-lock that enables submariners to leave the vessel, harvest pearls from the seabed and then return to the submarine.
Like Explorer, Nautilus was also used to gather items from the seabed. Colonel Blashford-Snell, who runs the British-based Scientific Exploration Society, said: "I had been told about the sub 20 years ago and it was described as a Japanese mini-sub. I was then told that in fact it was just a boiler, so I didn't worry about it."
When he and his team dived to examine the wreck they discovered it was older than previously thought. "It had a conning tower and I felt as if Captain Nemo should be in it at the controls," he said.
The submarine, which measures 11m by 3m, was lying in less than 3m of water off Isla San Telmo, an island in an archipelago known as the Pearl Islands.
Manned submarine technology was just developing when Verne was writing the novel in which Captain Nemo and his crew travel the world's oceans.
In the book it mentions that Nautilus was first spotted in 1866, just two years after the Explorer was built. "And 1864 was significant in another way because it was the year of the first sinking of a ship, USS Housatonic, by a submersible, the hand-cranked CSS Hunley," Colonel Blashford-Snell said.
Maritime historian Wyn Davies said: "If Jules Verne was researching the relatively new world of submersible vessels he would probably have heard of the Explorer's lock-out system."
link
The Times
07jun05
PANAMA: A British explorer has found an early submarine he believes was the inspiration for Nautilus, Captain Nemo's vessel in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.
Colonel John Blashford-Snell discovered the half-submerged, cast-iron wreck off the coast of Panama.
It was built in 1864 by a visionary craftsman, Julius Kroehl, for the Union forces during the American Civil War. But the boat, called Explorer, was never used in the conflict and was subsequently taken to Panama to harvest pearls.
It was ideal for this purpose because of a unique lock-out system, identical to the one in the Nautilus from Verne's book, published in 1870. The lock-out system is a reversible air-lock that enables submariners to leave the vessel, harvest pearls from the seabed and then return to the submarine.
Like Explorer, Nautilus was also used to gather items from the seabed. Colonel Blashford-Snell, who runs the British-based Scientific Exploration Society, said: "I had been told about the sub 20 years ago and it was described as a Japanese mini-sub. I was then told that in fact it was just a boiler, so I didn't worry about it."
When he and his team dived to examine the wreck they discovered it was older than previously thought. "It had a conning tower and I felt as if Captain Nemo should be in it at the controls," he said.
The submarine, which measures 11m by 3m, was lying in less than 3m of water off Isla San Telmo, an island in an archipelago known as the Pearl Islands.
Manned submarine technology was just developing when Verne was writing the novel in which Captain Nemo and his crew travel the world's oceans.
In the book it mentions that Nautilus was first spotted in 1866, just two years after the Explorer was built. "And 1864 was significant in another way because it was the year of the first sinking of a ship, USS Housatonic, by a submersible, the hand-cranked CSS Hunley," Colonel Blashford-Snell said.
Maritime historian Wyn Davies said: "If Jules Verne was researching the relatively new world of submersible vessels he would probably have heard of the Explorer's lock-out system."
link
tonym5 - June 14, 2005 09:57 PM (GMT)
Way cool!!! I claim the sub as mine in the name of Nemo!!! p:
Maeve - June 15, 2005 02:26 AM (GMT)
I just saw the Sea Hunters documentary about this the other night. Fascinating programme, I enjoy all the background info that they give you as well as the story about the actual search.