Posted on 09/18/2015 6:20:27 AM PDT by pabianice
For more than a century, the CSS Hunley rested at the bottom of the ocean just outside Charleston harbor, its crew entombed, its hull gradually encased in hardening encrustations.
When it was raised 15 years ago off South Carolina, it looked more like a barnacled sea monster than the world's first operational submarine, sunk in battle during the winter of 1864.
The remains of its eight sailors were removed in 2001, but research has continued, and Thursday, a conservation team announced that experts have now removed more than half a ton of the encrustations.
The result: the Hunley has much of the look and menace of a modern sub and is clearly the ancestor of the U-boat and the nuclear submarine of today.
(Excerpt) Read more at stripes.com ...
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Where is the relic now?
I’ve visited the Hunley several times, but not since she’s been upright and so clean. She looks magnificent.
It was a solid step in the evolution of the submarine. It would take a little longer for the powerplant to catch up to the rest of the design.
CC
Conservation Center’s on the old Charleston Navy base.
Thank you.
BTTT
I think this is it. I was there in 2003, it was an amazing sight to behold, they had it in a tank of water that had a small electrical charge in it to inhibit further deterioration if I remember correctly. You got to go into the conservation area and look down at it in the tank. It looks like it’s out now and on display, but I’d check before making the trip.
Warren Lasch Conservation Center
Clemson University Restoration Institute
1250 Supply Street
Building 255
North Charleston, SC 29405
Thank you. I’d like to go see it one day.
Right now I am reading a book called Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Eric Larson. It's the story of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and of the German U-boat that sank her. In a section about the history of submarines, Larson talks about the Hunley.
You’re welcome.
If you, or anyone, gets a chance to go I highly recommend it. I was in Charleston last Spring, thought about staying an extra day (the Conservation Center is only open for tours on weekends) to go see her again. Those pics make me regret not having done so.
But also take the short drive to Magnolia Cemetery, where her crews (plural) are buried.
A few pics and video of the restoration process.
http://www.clemson.edu/restoration/wlcc/project/hunley.html
I’d be surprised is Nikki “Finger-in-the-Wind” Haley doesn’t order it removed from the state on the basis of it being a hate-filled relic.
Wow.
Wonder if anyone’s considered making an exact working replica now that the original is visible again.
exact working?
Probably not. More than one crew was killed operating it.
God Bless America !
I feel oppressed and triggered by the sight of this racist sub.
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