Following is from the Daily Mail and AP:
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| Hunley almost free of concretion |
The first submarine to down an enemy
ship was sunk itself after its crew failed to release an emergency weight to
help it resurface.
Crew aboard the Confederate vessel
HL Hunley did not disconnect the 1,000lb keel blocks to help it rapidly
resurface, resulting in the sub being trapped underwater and the men dying from
lack of oxygen.
Scientists who removed the
corrosion, silt and shells from the boat found the levers all locked in their
regular position, solving a mystery dating back to 1864.
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| one of three keel weights being lifted from vessel |
The blocks would typically keep the
sub upright, but also could be released with three levers. That would allow it
to surface rapidly, archaeologist Michael Scafuri, who has worked on the
submarine for 18 years, said.
'It's more evidence there wasn't
much of a panic on board,' Scafuri said.
The Hunley and its eight crewmembers
disappeared in February 1864 in Charleston Harbor shortly after signaling it
had placed explosives on the hull of the Union ship the USS Housatonic.
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| keel block ready to go on display |
The Hunley had delivered a blast
from 135 pounds of black powder below the waterline at the stern of the
Housatonic, sinking the Union ship in less than five minutes.
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| diagram of Hunley's "torpedo" system |
Housatonic lost five seamen, but
came to rest upright in 30 feet of water, which allowed the remaining crew to
be rescued after climbing the rigging and deploying lifeboats.
Ever since the Hunley was raised
from the ocean floor in 2000, scientists have worked to determine why the sub
never returned to the surface.
The keel blocks don't give a
definitive answer, but do provide clues that either the crew didn't think it
needed to surface quickly or never realized they were in danger.
The crew moved the submarine through
the ocean with a hand crank, and one theory is they were resting on the ocean
floor 4 miles from shore waiting for the tide to turn to make their journey
back to land easier and ran out of oxygen or got stuck.
But there are other theories, such
as the Housatonic explosion knocking out the Hunley's crew or a ship that sped
to help save some of the crew on the Union ship clipping the Confederate sub
and crippling it as it tried to dive.
Those theories can't be ruled out -
at least not yet and maybe never, said Scafuri, who planned to work on the
Hunley mystery for a year or two as a graduate student in 2000 and is now
entering his 18th year helping conserve and study the submarine which is stored
in chilled, fresh water in a 75,000-gallon tank in North Charleston.
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| Hunley being further preserved |
Over 18 years, Scafuri said they
have uncovered nearly a dozen artifacts, reconstructed the faces of the crew
members and gained more knowledge about the science behind the submarine, which
was built in Mobile, Alabama.
'We keep seeing parts that no one
has seen in 150 years. All of them add into the mix of what happened and how
this sub was operated,' Scafuri said. 'After all, we don't have the
blueprints.'
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Definitive? Hardly. Plausible? Absolutely. Will we ever know what happened? I doubt it; but theories will continue to appear and either be viable or crazy, depending on the source and the audience!
Until next time,
Fair Winds,
Old Salt
