The CSS H. L. Hunley, a
Confederate submarine, made history on 17 February 1864 when it became the
first submarine to sink an enemy ship, the USS Housatonic, in Charleston, SC,
harbour. The boat was designed and built in 1863 in Mobile, AL, CSA, and named
for the principal investor in the project. In 1864 it was shipped by rail to
Charleston and taken over by the confederate army. The Hunley carried a crew of
seven or eight, one Skipper and the rest to hand crank the propeller. The sub
was 12 Meters in length with a beam of 1.17 Meters and a hull height of 1.2
Meters. It had a top speed of 7.4 Km/hr. Not only was the interior very cramped
for the crew, but the two hatches were only 40 cm in diameter, making entry
difficult as well. Hunley’s armament was a spar torpedo, a copper canister
containing 41 Kg of black powder explosive mounted on the end of a 6.7 Meter spar.
The torpedo was equipped with a barbed spike designed to be rammed into the
hull of an enemy ship below the water line. The Hunley would then be backed
away and the torpedo detonated by withdrawing a cord attached to the fuse.
Unfortunately for the crew, the torpedo seems to have exploded within a few
meters of the sub and sank both the target and the Hunley.
This model is based, in part, on the reproduction of the Hunley on display at the Charleston Museum, which I saw in 2001 on a visit to South Carolina. I first modelled the Hunley in SketchUp in 2014.
#army #Charleston #Civil_War #Confederate #CSS #hand-powered #Hunley #navy #SC #South_Carolina #submarine
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