Plongeur
Encyclopedia
Plongeur (French for "Diver") was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
launched on 16 April 1863. She was the first submarine in the world to be propelled by mechanical (rather than human) power.
Captain
Captain (nautical)
A sea captain is a licensed mariner in ultimate command of the vessel. The captain is responsible for its safe and efficient operation, including cargo operations, navigation, crew management and ensuring that the vessel complies with local and international laws, as well as company and flag...
Siméon Bourgeois
Siméon Bourgeois
Siméon Bourgois was a 19th-century French Navy vice-admiral who was especially involved in the development of early submarines. He was born in Thionville, Lorraine, on March 26, 1815, and died in Paris on December 24, 1887....
, who made the plans, and naval constructor
Constructor
Constructor may refer to:*Constructor , object-organizing method* Constructor , a 1997 PC game by Acclaim, the prequel of Constructor: Street Wars...
Charles Brun
Charles Brun (France)
Charles Brun was a 1st class engineer of the French Navy stationed at Rochefort, France.He was famously involved in building the submarine Plongeur, which had been designed by Simon Bourgeois, in 1862....
began working on the design in 1859 at Rochefort
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...
.
Specifications
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Compressed air
Compressed air is air which is kept under a certain pressure, usually greater than that of the atmosphere. In Europe, 10 percent of all electricity used by industry is used to produce compressed air, amounting to 80 terawatt hours consumption per year....
powering a reciprocating engine
Reciprocating engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...
. The air was contained in 23 tanks holding air at 12.5 bar
Bar (unit)
The bar is a unit of pressure equal to 100 kilopascals, and roughly equal to the atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea level. Other units derived from the bar are the megabar , kilobar , decibar , centibar , and millibar...
(1.25 MPa, 180 psi), taking up a huge amount of space (153 m³/5,403 ft³), and requiring the submarine to be of unprecedented size. The engine had a power of 60 kW (80 hp), and could propel the submarine for 5 nmi
Nautical mile
The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...
s (9 km), at a speed of 4 kn (7.2 km/h).
Compressed air was also used to empty its ballast tanks, which had a volume of 53 m³ (1,872 ft³). Ballast
Sailing ballast
Ballast is used in sailboats to provide moment to resist the lateral forces on the sail. Insufficiently ballasted boats will tend to tip, or heel, excessively in high winds. Too much heel may result in the boat capsizing. If a sailing vessel should need to voyage without cargo then ballast of...
was 212 t
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
(234 ton
Long ton
Long ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
s), including a security ballast of 34 t (37 tons).
The submarine was armed with a ram
Naval ram
A naval ram was a weapon carried by varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon consisted of an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between six and twelve feet in length...
to break holes in the hull
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
of enemy ships, and an electrically-fired spar torpedo
Spar torpedo
A spar torpedo is a weapon consisting of a bomb placed at the end of a long pole, or spar, and attached to a boat. The weapon is used by running the end of the spar into the enemy ship. Spar torpedoes were often equipped with a barbed spear at the end, so it would stick to wooden hulls...
, fixed at the end of a pole.
The submarine was 43 m (140 ft) long and 381 t (420 tons) in displacement.
A support ship, the Cachalot, followed her in order to resupply the compressed air necessary to her propulsion.
A small lifeboat
Lifeboat (shipboard)
A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...
(8 x 1.7 m/26 x 5.6 ft) was provided for the escape of the 12-man complement.
Operational history
The submarine was commanded by Lieutenant de Vaisseau Marie-Joseph-Camille DoréMarie-Joseph-Camille Doré
Marie-Joseph-Camille Doré was a captain in the French Navy in the 19th century. He was born in La Rochelle in western France on January 14, 1831....
, a native of La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
.
On 6 October 1863, Plongeur made her first trials by sailing down the Charente river
Charente River
The Charente is a 381 km long river in southwestern France.Its source is in the Haute-Vienne département at Chéronnac, a small village near Rochechouart. It flows through the departments of Haute-Vienne, Charente, Vienne and Charente-Maritime...
, towards the harbour of the Cabane Carrée.
On 2 November 1863, Plongeur was towed towards Port de Barques where her first underwater trials were planned. Because of poor weather conditions, the submarine was eventually towed to La Pallice and then to the harbour of La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
(Bassin à flot).
On 14 February 1864, during trials in the Bassin à flot, the engine raced due to an excessive admission of compressed air, and the submarine bumped into the quay. Trials were stopped.
On 18 February 1864, Plongeur was towed to La Pallice and dived to 9 m (30 ft).
Stabilizer (ship)
Ship stabilizers are fins mounted beneath the waterline and emerging laterally. In contemporary vessels, they may be gyroscopically controlled active fins, which have the capacity to change their angle of attack to counteract roll caused by wind or waves acting on the ship.The bilge keel is an...
problems due to its length limited the submarine to dives to a maximum depth of 10 m (33 ft). The front of the submarine would tend to dive first, hitting the bottom, so that the submarine would glide forward. Pumps were installed to compensate for the tilt, but proved too slow to be effective. The installation of longitudinal rudders would have improved stability as later demonstrated by the Gymnote
Gymnote
The Gymnote was one of the world's first all-electric submarines.Launched on 24 September 1888, she was developed in France following early experiments by Dupuy de Lôme, and, after his death, by Gustave Zédé and Arthur Krebs, who completed the project...
and Gustave-Zédé submarines.
A model of Plongeur was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
, where it was studied by Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, who used it as an inspiration and 3 years later published his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne published in 1870. It tells the story of Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus as seen from the perspective of Professor Pierre Aronnax...
.
After various experiments, the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
struck the ship on 2 February 1872.
Conversion
The submarine was reactivated as an automotive water tanker, equipped with a compound 2-cylinder steam engine of 90 kW (120 hp), on 1 January 1873. She was assigned to the harbour of Rochefort. She was equipped with a new engine in 1898, transferred from a torpedo boat (Torpilleur No 74).In 1927, upon the closure of the arsenal at Rochefort
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...
, she was transferred to the Mediterranean at Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
, where she was used to supply the 1st and 3rd squadrons with water.
She was decommissioned on 25 December 1935, and sold for 25,143 francs to a M. Negai on 26 May 1937.