Fulton's Nautilus, a submarine for Napoleon
Robert Fulton built a working submarine for France in 1800, seven years before his famous steamboat.
The surprise
Robert Fulton (1765–1815), the American famous for the steamboat, built a submarine first. In 1800, living in France, he built the Nautilus and offered it to Napoleon's government as a weapon against the British navy, which was blockading France.
The boat
- About 21 feet long, copper over an iron frame, shaped like a stretched egg.
- Hand-cranked propeller underwater; a folding mast and sail for the surface.
- Tested on the Seine and off the French coast at Le Havre and Brest; Fulton and a small crew stayed submerged for hours using compressed air.
- Its weapon was a "torpedo" (what we would now call a mine), towed and attached to an enemy hull.
What happened
It worked, but it never sank a British ship: the British ships simply sailed away whenever it came near. Napoleon lost interest, and the French admirals thought it a dishonorable way to fight. Fulton then took the idea to the British, who also passed.
So he went home and turned to steam. His Clermont (officially North River Steamboat) began running on the Hudson from New York to Albany in 1807, the first commercially successful steamboat. The sub preceded the steamboat by seven years.
The name
Nautilus is Greek nautilos, "sailor" (see Astronaut and nautical). Jules Verne named Captain Nemo's submarine after Fulton's boat, and has Nemo mention it. Later, the US Navy's first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus (1954), carried the name on.
Key facts
- Fulton built the Nautilus submarine for Napoleon in 1800, seven years before his steamboat
- Clermont steamboat on the Hudson, 1807
- Verne's Nautilus was named after Fulton's