Kategorie: News
Wreck of experimental submarine built in 1907 found
Divers from Connecticut have discovered the wreck of an experimental submarine built in 1907 and sunk years later in Long Island Sound. The Defender, a 28-metre boat, was found on Sunday by a team led by Richard Simon, a commercial diver from Coventry, Connecticut.
The Defender, a 28-metre long boat, was found on Sunday by a team led by Richard Simon, a commercial diver from Coventry, Connecticut. Simon reported he had been interested in the Defender's history for years. He spent months going through known sonar and underwater mapping of the seabed, as well as government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, to find anomalies that might match the submarine's size.
Experimental submarine on wheels
The submarine, originally named Lake, was built by millionaire Simon Lake and his Bridgeport-based Lake Torpedo Boat Company in the hope of winning a competition for a contract with the US Navy, according to NavSource Online, a website dedicated to preserving naval history.
It was an experimental boat with wheels that moved along the seabed and a door that allowed divers to escape underwater, Simon said.
The company lost the competition and Lake then tried to convert the boat for minesweeping, salvage and rescue work, renaming it Defender. But he never found a buyer. It was a well-known submarine and was even visited by aviatrix Amelia Earhart in 1929, Simon said.
But the submarine remained unused for many years, anchored in New London and eventually abandoned in a mud flat near Old Saybrook. It was sunk by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1946, but the Corps never disclosed where, Simon said.
So as a wreck diver, I can visit history
Simon said when his team found the wreck, it was clear that it was indeed the Defender. The length, size and shape of the protrusions on the submarine's pronounced keel, as well as the shape and location of the diving planes characteristic of ships built on the lake, helped in the identification, he said.
Simon and his team plan to spend the summer diving on the submarine, filming it and taking photos. He has already contacted the navy to see if they would be interested in preserving the wreck. Fortunately, the ship enjoys some protection under the so-called Abandoned Shipwreck Act, a 1988 law that allows the wreck to be treated as an archaeological or historical site rather than a commercial object to be salvaged.
"So as a wreck diver I can visit history, I can touch it, I can experience it," he said. "It's just a different connection to history, to the past, that we don't have in any other activity."
About Shoreline Diving Services
Shoreline provides a wide range of underwater services in New England and New York including underwater surveys, dam inspections, cable projects, bridge, and dam repairs (under the direction of the engineers), and ship husbandry. Shoreline provides services to Homeland Security, CT DEEP, National Rail Passenger Corp., State of MA, DCR, and water companies in the State of Connecticut. Shoreline is owned and operated by Erin and Richard Simon.
Shoreline Diving Services and its crew was recently featured on the Discovery Channel program “Sewer Divers.” When Rick is not working as a commercial diver, he locates, dives, and salvages artifacts from shipwrecks in the North Atlantic.