The Turtle

The Turtle was used in the fall of 1776 to attack a British warship at anchor in New York harbor.  The Turtle was literally a hand -powered submersible with a screw propeller for horizontal travel and a separate one for vertical travel!

The operator sat on a seat and turned the screw for propulsion by hand while flooding water in or pumping water out with his arms to adjust buoyancy.  With the first use of the screw propeller, the vessel could achieve speeds of about 3 miles per hour for a limited time. This was an astonishing achievement by a backyard inventor!

Using two drum halves cabled together and pitched so it would be water proof, this amazing vessel was barely larger than its inventor. Rather crude by modern standards, it looked like two turtle shells pasted together, hence the name.

Imagine sitting inside on a cold night while attaching a130 pound underwater bomb to a British warship, H.M.S. Eagle, a 64- gun frigate moored in New York harbor!  What would have been a breakthrough in technology was thwarted by the inability to penetrate copper plates on the bottom of the warship and attach the bomb.

While this brilliant attempt failed, the frigate was forced to re-locate, recognizing the new power of the unknown force, whether used or not. What had been demonstrated was the ability to submerge with limited range for a period of thirty minutes with some unusual technical problems conquered. For example, another well known inventor, Benjamin Franklin, provided Bushnell with the idea of using bioluminescence instead of a candle for interior light, thereby conserving precious oxygen.    

It was a crude attempt for a submarine with limited, visual only sensors and an underwater bomb (mine) with a timer and a poor weapons delivery system but it was a start down the technological road of industrial discovery and breakthroughs that would lead to submarine development around the world!