Recently, British media reported that the world's first submarine to sink in the Irish Sea was accidentally discovered by submariners off the coast of North Wales.
The found submarine was built in the 19th century. priest and part-time inventor George Garrett. He used an internal combustion engine on it, which had to be turned off when the boat was submerged, but the residual steam allowed the propeller to rotate for another two hours. Garrett had failed to invent the periscope, and the breathing device for the two crew members only partially worked. However, his main mistake, according to experts, was that he decided to tow the untested submarine by sea to the royal exhibition in Portsmouth, instead of transporting it there on a railway platform. On February 25, 1880, during a storm, the tug cable broke and the submarine sank.
British journalists, as is often the case, rushed in with the statement. The world's first submarine was built not in England, but in Russia, and not in 1880, but almost 200 years earlier.
… In 1718, a petition from a self-taught inventor Efim Nikonov came to the tsar's office. In it, a very young guy from the village of Pokrovskoye-Rubtsovo suggested that Peter I build "not sparing his belly" a kind of "hidden ship" that could swim under water! The tsar, eager for all sorts of outlandish projects, and especially those associated with the fleet, became interested in this idea and ordered that the petitioner be immediately brought to St. Petersburg for a personal conversation. What Peter I talked about with 19-year-old Efim remains unknown, but immediately after this conversation, the Tsar ordered the Admiralty to build a small exemplary ship without a moment's delay.
At the Galerny yard, Efim Nikonov was given a construction site, a huge shed was built on it, and already in February 1720 work began on the world's first submarine! At the end of the summer, the almost finished model was transferred to the barge, and already at the beginning of autumn, Nikonov reported that the submarine was built and ready for testing.
The "hidden vessel", which was named "Moral", was launched, loaded with sandbags, checked the operation of the mechanisms and made sure there were no leaks.
Several times the boat sank and floated to the surface, but then in its hull, despite a preliminary check, several cracks appeared at once, and it began to sink quickly.
But, although “the first pancake turned out to be a lump,” Peter was pleased with what he saw and ordered, “without delaying for a long time,” to start building a “hidden ship” of a large size and, moreover, equipped with “incendiary pipes”.
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In the fall of 1724, a "large hull hidden vessel" was built. The boat was oblong, barrel-shaped and equipped with every conceivable weapon. But, unfortunately, it was not time to be spent on armaments, but on strengthening the corps. The first tests ended in failure: after sinking to the bottom, the boat damaged the wooden bottom, and water began to flow into the hull.
Over the next few years, Nikonov continued to bring his boat to condition, despite the fact that after the death of Peter I, the funding for his project was reduced to a minimum. The last tests took place in 1727, and … ended in another failure.
Efim Nikonov's idea was buried and forgotten for many years. Only 100 years later, the military inventor Karl Andreevich Schilder returned to her.
In 1832, Schilder carried out research on the underwater action of galvanic mines in order to protect ports from the enemy fleet. During this period, he conceived the idea of building a boat, which, moving under water, could invisibly approach the enemy ship and blow it up with a galvanic mine.
Having developed his project, Schilder began to build a boat at his own expense. Only later did the government accept the expenses at the expense of the state and released 13.5 thousand rubles to the inventor. At that time - a lot of money.
The submarine was built from boiler iron about 5 mm thick. The hull, slightly flattened from the sides, had an oblong ovoid shape and was about 6 m long, about 2.25 m wide and 1.85 m high. The vessel could dive to a depth of 13 m.
On August 29, 1834, the first tests of the Schilder submarine took place, after which it was transferred to Kronstadt to complete the experiments. The boat's crew consisted of 9 people: 7 sailors, midshipman Khmelev, who is the first submarine officer of the Russian fleet, and Karl Schilder himself.
After successful tests, the Russian government instructed Schilder to build a more advanced boat, suitable for putting it into operation of the naval forces. It took Karl Andreevich about 4 years to build a new submarine. Tests of the new ship took place on June 24, 1838.
Unfortunately, minor problems with the test and the small effect of the attack led to the fact that the dull-headed officials from the naval department refused Schilder the funds to modernize the boat and continue the experiments.
While highly classified, Schilder's invention was not widely known.
Schilder's submarine was the most original of all built during this period. For the first time, an optical device for underwater observation was installed on it - the prototype of the current periscope. In addition to a mine with a galvanic fuse, rockets were also used on Schilder's boat, which is especially noteworthy, since only in our time it was possible to solve the problem of using such weapons on submarines.
Source: “Interesting Newspaper Plus. Incredible No.10 (134)