hide was named, did account for one enemy 

 schooner. 



In the early 1800's Robert Fulton (inventor 

 of the steamship) built two iron-framed, cop- 

 per-skinned submarines, NAUTILUS and 

 Mt/r£.The former carried out successful mil- 

 itary tests against moored targets for both 

 France's Napoleon Bonaparte and the 

 British. Neither craft was ever used opera- 

 tionally, however. 



The first "modern" submersible — it could 

 be argued — was Simon Lake's ARGONAUT 

 FIRST, a small clumsy-looking vehicle 

 launched shortly before 1890. Made of 

 wooden planks and waterproofed with pitch, 

 it was powered by a gasoline engine snor- 

 keled to the surface through a buoy-sup- 

 ported flexible hose, and it boasted blowable 

 ballast tanks — the first submarine to do so. 

 In addition, it sported powered wheels and a 

 bottom hatch that could be opened — after 

 the interior was pressurized to ambient — to 

 permit the hand recovery of bottom samples, 

 including oysters. 



These are just a few examples of the long 

 history and the nature of man's early tech- 

 nological efforts to function effectively 

 within the ocean environment. While Simon 

 Lake in the first part of the 20th Century did 

 develop a submersible salvage system, in- 

 cluding submersible barges, and managed to 

 recover a cargo of anthracite coal from the 

 bottom of Long Island Sound, the manned 

 submersible was not to emerge as a diverse 

 and functional means of accomplishing use- 

 ful underwater work for over half a century, 

 which brings us to where this work com- 

 mences. 



In 1965 a delegation from the U.S. Naval 

 Oceanographic Office journeyed to Lantana, 

 Florida to evaluate John Perry's CUBMA- 

 RINE as an undersea surveyor. 



The "evaluation," to say the least, was 

 cursory and strongly resembled a used car 

 purchase. The team (headed by the author) 

 gazed astutely at the tiny, yellow craft from 

 various angles, rapped its steel hull for 

 toughness, caressed its sides for smoothness 

 and sat inside to see if they fit. A few hours 

 later the team leader had the opportunity to 

 dive in the (now pronounced) "sound" vehicle 

 for an operational evaluation. The result was 



predictable: One could see out of it, the seats 

 were hard and there wasn't much room. But, 

 what else could the amateur do? Had it been 

 possible, we probably would have taken a 

 bite out of it. 



Since the mid-sixties hundreds of scientific 

 and technical articles have appeared describ- 

 ing the design and materials of what are now 

 called manned submersibles. Several books 

 have been published that relate the activi- 

 ties of specific vehicles. As a result, the in- 

 dustrious student can — with patience and a 

 comprehensive library — become quite famil- 

 iar with the history, jargon, design and oper- 

 ations of submersibles and need not feel like 

 a technological ignoramus on his first en- 

 counter. 



Unfortunately, as the new student soon 

 learns, there is no single point of reference 

 from which to begin an education. The infor- 

 mation is available, but it is so scattered that 

 merely accumulating an adequate bibliog- 

 raphy is a chore, and in the course of assem- 

 bling this data, the field itself is moving at so 

 rapid a pace that most vehicle descriptions 

 are in error within a short time of their 

 publication. 



Adding to the consternation is the jargon; 

 many of the terms used to describe manned 

 submersibles, such as "trim," "blow," "vent," 

 came directly from military submarines, but 

 "viewports," "mechanical arms," "claws" 

 and other terms are unique to the submers- 

 ibles. Indeed "manned submersible" is not 

 used with consistency. "Undersea Vehicles," 

 "Deep Research Vehicles," "Deep Submer- 

 gence Vehicles," "Mini-Subs," "Submersible 

 Vessels," even "Submarinos" are synony- 

 mous. So the quest for an introduction, even 

 a nodding aquaintance, may be detoured by 

 jargon alone. 



On the other hand there are the partici- 

 pants of the field; though not blocked by 

 jargon, they have no ready access to the 

 technological advancements or even the cur- 

 rent progress in their own field. There is a 

 wide variety of technical and semi-technical 

 journals wherein bits and pieces of experi- 

 ence in, and advice on, submersible opera- 

 tions and the results of tests or evaluation of 

 components can be found, but the time it 

 takes to review the literature (even if it 

 could all be found in one place) is prohibitive. 



