Dear Webmaster for the official Hunley
submarine site.
I am a personal submarine owner. I am also a
member of Psubs.org, a personal submarine owner web site and forum. We
have been discussing the Hunley and trying to figure out how she
worked.
I am interested in how the Hunley's ballast
tanks worked as well as how she submerged.
Would you please tell me if my below
description is correct and if it is not, would you please explain to me how
it is wrong.
My information is that the Hunley had open top
(bathtub style) ballast tanks that were open to the hull interior. My
information is that the Hunley did not carry compressed air
tanks.
From this I deduced that the Hunley had all her
air from the surface trapped within her when she dove and could never lose
any of that air.
This would make the Hunley like an upside down
glass trying to submerge without losing any air. The only way the
Hunley could submerge in my mind, would be for the Hunley to use
her
forward motion and dive planes to force her
underwater, is this correct? Then once underwater the superior water
pressure would force water into the opened valve of the open top ballast
tanks and compress the atmosphere
in the Hunley. Wouldn't this make the Hunley an
ambient submarine as opposed to being a 1 atmosphere submarine?
Then when the Hunley wanted to accend the crew
would somehow utilize the compressed atmosphere (how did they do that?) and
a pump, to pump the water out of the ballast tanks and then the
atmosphere in the Hunley would decompress and
return to 1 atmosphere and she would accend. Is all the above of what I just
wrote correct? Also, has anyone done an analysis of how stable or unstable
the Hunley would be if she dropped
her keel weight to return to the surface, and
were there any indications of that trying to be done inside the Hunley
artifact?
I would appreciate if you could cover all the
above questions and correct or confirm what I wrote so I can share them with
my fellow personal submarine owners at Psubs.com
Thanks very much.
Sincerely,
Bill
Akins.