/uss-nautilus-large-56a61c3f3df78cf7728b6446.gif "nautilus submarine")
Finally, the Nautilus was able to get under weigh for Bergen, Norway, where they rendezvoused with the sub's science officers and took on additional equipment. Delay was added to delay, when essential spare parts had to be shipped specially from the United States. The Wyoming took the foundering submarine in tow to Queenstown, Ireland, from which she was later towed to Davenport, England, for repairs. Wyoming (BB-32), which was crossing the Atlantic on a training cruise with midshipmen from the Naval Academy. The Nautilus was eventually rescued on June 15 by the U.S.S. This mishap was followed by the failure of the port engine, probably form overuse as the sole source of propulsion.ĭuring the crossing, Wilkins had continually radioed the submarine's position back to the United States, and after both engines had failed, they began to broadcast a SOS.
#Nautilus submarine cracked#
While crossing the Atlantic, the Nautilus ran into severe storms that resulted in mechanical failure on June 13, when the starboard engine cracked a cylinder. This leg of the voyage, too, would be ill fated. Facing mounting criticism and the fact the expedition was already two months behind schedule, it was decided that the Nautilus would head out immediately to its next port of call in England. Among the many spectators to witness the event was Jean Jules Verne, grandson to the author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which was the source of the O-12's new name.īefore setting out on the expedition, the crew put the Nautilus through test runs in various locations off the New England coast, including a 90-foot dive off Block Island. The next day, Lady Suzanne Bennett Wilkins (Sir Hubert's wife) christened the submarine Nautilus, using a bottle of ice water, since prohibition made champagne unavailable. Grimmer, age 27, fell overboard and drowned.
#Nautilus submarine series#
While entering New York Harbor, the crew suffered the first in a series of accidents and mechanical problems that would plague them on the expedition when Willard I. On March 23 the O-12 arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. A snow storm forced the O-12 to stop at the Philadelphia Navy Yard (not an auspicious start for a ship headed to the Arctic), and she had to stop again at the Texas Oil Company wharf at Marcus Hook to take on fuel.Ĭhristening the Nautilus at Brooklyn Navy Yard Even before leaving the Delaware River, however, the sub was delayed. With the modifications complete, the submarine cast off from Mathis Shipyard on March 16 for the first leg of her journey which would take her to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. There, the boat was stripped of her military armament and fitted out with the latest scientific equipment, and changes were made to the superstructure to allow her to operate beneath the ice floes. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was brought to the Mathis Shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, for additional modifications. The submarine that Wilkins leased was the O-12 (SS 73), built in 1916 by the Lake Torpedo Boat Co. The experiments ranged from meteorological observations to temperature and water samples taken from the surface and the sea floor. Using a modified O-class submarine leased from the United States Navy, the goals of this expedition were two-fold: to conduct scientific experiments and observations while moored to ice floes and while under weigh and to successfully navigate to the North Pole while submerged beneath the ice floes. In 1931, Sir Hubert began to assemble his scientific research mission to the North Pole. Wilkins also envisioned the use of submarines to establish weather stations in the polar regions, and as a means of transporting cargo between Europe and the United States over shorter distances by sailing over the roof of the world. Both men had crossed the North Pole before (Wilkins by airplane and Ellsworth by airship), and both saw that the submarine as a means of safely reaching the Arctic to conduct scientific experiments. The actual plan of the expedition, suggested by that expedition's commander Vilhjalmur Stefansson, came to fruition during Wilkins's honeymoon in 1930, while staying with Lincoln Ellsworth at his Swiss Castle in Schloss Lenzburg. Sir Hubert Wilkins first got the idea of a submarine expedition to the North Pole during his first polar expedition in 1913.
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