Fulton’s improvement was what he called the ‘Horn of the Nautilis’, a spike that sat on top of his small conning tower. Bushnell, as you’ll remember from our previous episode, tried to basically drill a bomb into a ship’s hull. Heavy copper layering below the keel allowed for stability.Īnother innovation, though only in name, was the torpedo.įulton’s method of attacking a surface ship was again an improvement on Bushnell’s idea. This allowed for quicker diving, surfacing and balance under water. Fulton used the rudders at the front as an early form of diving planes, so as to push the Nautilus under water at speed in combination with the buoyancy provided by the ballast tanks. A submarine went up and down vertically using ballast tanks. Thus far submarine designs had mainly relied on buoyancy. The other innovation was diving rudders at the front. When on the surface, the Nautilus could quicky unfurl a sail and just as quickly wrap it up again. Submerged propulsion was a hand-crank, like the designs of Van Drebbel and Bushnell, operated by two crew members. One of Fulton’s innovations to the field was twin propulsion. Her teardrop-shaped hull was made of wood, iron ribs and copper plating. The Nautilus was a little over 20 feet in length, or some 7 meters. His thoughts culminated in the design for the Nautilus submarine. Throughout the years Fulton had also been thinking about submarines, imagining ways to improve on the works of Van Drebbel and Bushnell. The French immediately ran into the dominance of the Royal Navy, which had started a naval blockade.
He then moved to revolutionary France, where he arrived in Paris in 1797, just when France and Britain had gone off to war. The British government was lukewarm on his ideas and plans. He improved on a steam propulsion engine and dabbled in the design of canals and bridges, specialized cargo boats, locks and sluices. He then took an interest in engineering properly.
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