This site gives an account of my project building a working model of Brutus DeVilleroi's 1859 salvage submarine on commission from the Science Channel. Click along with the triangular arrows or use the list at the top of the page to see the project from start to finish.
Feb 16 - 2005 The model is finished, the video for the Discovery Science Channel has been shot and the model is now in her home at the Philadelphia Independence Seaport Museum (below). The video is set to air on Oct 5, 2005.
The model in it's new home at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia
This photo appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer - Feb 7, 2005
Late 1890's Sarmiento's engraving of the May 17, 1862 police seizure of the deVilleroi Salvage Submarine Propeller; the boat I named "Alligator Junior."
In 1859 expatriate Frenchman Brutus deVilleroi (according to my francophone friends is pronounced Brew-tues The-Veal-aRaw built a 35 foot long submarine in Philadelphia, ostensibly to salvage the wreck of the HMSDeBraakthat sank off Delaware in a violent storm in 1798. At least that is what he told his investor what the sub was intended for.
Many feel however, deVilleroi used the boat as a proof-of-concept model to show the US Navy the value of a submersible in warfare. Through what may have been a "publicity stunt" on May 17, 1862 (documented in the Philadelphia Evening Enquirer and the Saturday Evening Post) he was successful in getting the attention of the US Navy and was granted a contract to built the Navy's first submarine, the USS Alligator.
Being that "deVilleroi's 1859 Philadelphia Salvage Submarine" is a bit of a mouthful - I have dubbed this boat "Alligator Junior".
I was commissioned by David Clark - a producer for the Science Channel - to build a model of this sub to be featured in a documentary about Mssr. deVilleroi and the USS Alligator. I am using this website to document the process I am using to build and radio control this model.
I will try to update this site several times per week, so feel free to follow along on my little foray into professional modeling. This is the first time I had to please someone other than myself on a project and I also have a deadline with which I have never had to deal before.
The shoot is around the end of September at the US Navy's Carderock Surface Warfare Center -David Taylor Model Basin. (Click on the link to see some info on this fantastic facility!) This is very exciting and a bit intimidating. It's is the "pros", I hope I am up to it... =8^O Best regards, Tim Smalley Apple Valley, Minnesota tmsmalley @ yahoo.com
One of my first sketches of the "Junior" showing the rationale for picking the shape of the prop guard. It was from a diagram deVilleroi sent to Emperor Napoleon III to try to sell him on the value of his submarine. The saw teeth that are circled and grayed out were to allow the sub to ram an enemy and damage wooden hulled warships. Since we really had no idea how the prop guard may have looked, I decided it may have been similar to the prop guard on the WW II US fleet submarine.
The conning tower was also tricky in that there were no written descriptions of it in any of the press reports. However, Catherine Marzin of NOAA found an illustrated article in the Saturday Evening Post that was published about ten days after the incident when the "Junior" was confiscated by the police. It does show a dome.
I made these Adobe Illustrator plans of deVilleroi's pre-Alligator Salvage Submarine after numerous discussions with submarine historian and artist Jim Christley, Science Channel producer David Clark, NOAA staffer Catherine Marzin who discovered the original deVilleroi plans in Paris, professional modeler David Merriman, and also people involved in the US Navy's hunt for the USS Alligator. This early version of the plan doesn't show the divers' lockout hatch in the first course of plates in the bow just forward of the conning tower. I will be adding that as well. It will probably change as I progress through the construction process.
Cropped Sarmiento engraving.
Since there were no plans found as of yet of this early deVilleroi opus, we took into account the two engravings of the sub that were done around the time it was built and also several newspaper and magazine accounts and descriptions. For instance, neither of the drawings showed bow planes since they would have been under water, but one of the reporters talked about two "pinions". Pinions refer to the studs that stick out from the sides of a cannon. I guess you could say that dive planes look like that to someone who has never seen a submarine.
Another reporter talked about controls that worked rudders on the side of the boat to control depth. We decided planes were reasonable conclusion.
This engraving appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on May 25, 1862 - about a week after the harbor patrol officers put the "Habeas Grabbus" on the sub, suspecting that it was a rebel "infernal machine". Note the domed conning tower and "reverse sharkfin" rudder.
The oddly shaped steering rudders I show are strictly from the two engravings and the WWII fleet sub looking prop guards were called "contrivances to protect the propeller". Since no shroud appeared in the engravings, I decided it must have been something as I have drawn. The prop is typical of Civil War era propellers; three fan-shaped blades with a large blade ratio and large pitch.
The rivets were a compromise between what showed up on the engravings, what machine shop practice of the day was and the rivet work on the H.L. Hunley. Rivet pattern on the H.L. Hunley - photo copyright Friends of the Hunley
If you would like to see some of the documentation related to the Junior, check out the link at the top right side of this page for more information and draw your own conclusions!
Feb 16 - 2005 The model is finished, the video for the Discovery Science Channel has been shot and the model is now in her home at the Philadelphia Independence Seaport Museum (below). The video is set to air on Oct 5, 2005.
The model in it's new home at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia
This photo appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer - Feb 7, 2005
Late 1890's Sarmiento's engraving of the May 17, 1862 police seizure of the deVilleroi Salvage Submarine Propeller; the boat I named "Alligator Junior."
In 1859 expatriate Frenchman Brutus deVilleroi (according to my francophone friends is pronounced Brew-tues The-Veal-aRaw built a 35 foot long submarine in Philadelphia, ostensibly to salvage the wreck of the HMSDeBraakthat sank off Delaware in a violent storm in 1798. At least that is what he told his investor what the sub was intended for.
Many feel however, deVilleroi used the boat as a proof-of-concept model to show the US Navy the value of a submersible in warfare. Through what may have been a "publicity stunt" on May 17, 1862 (documented in the Philadelphia Evening Enquirer and the Saturday Evening Post) he was successful in getting the attention of the US Navy and was granted a contract to built the Navy's first submarine, the USS Alligator.
Being that "deVilleroi's 1859 Philadelphia Salvage Submarine" is a bit of a mouthful - I have dubbed this boat "Alligator Junior".
I was commissioned by David Clark - a producer for the Science Channel - to build a model of this sub to be featured in a documentary about Mssr. deVilleroi and the USS Alligator. I am using this website to document the process I am using to build and radio control this model.
I will try to update this site several times per week, so feel free to follow along on my little foray into professional modeling. This is the first time I had to please someone other than myself on a project and I also have a deadline with which I have never had to deal before.
The shoot is around the end of September at the US Navy's Carderock Surface Warfare Center -David Taylor Model Basin. (Click on the link to see some info on this fantastic facility!) This is very exciting and a bit intimidating. It's is the "pros", I hope I am up to it... =8^O Best regards, Tim Smalley Apple Valley, Minnesota tmsmalley @ yahoo.com
One of my first sketches of the "Junior" showing the rationale for picking the shape of the prop guard. It was from a diagram deVilleroi sent to Emperor Napoleon III to try to sell him on the value of his submarine. The saw teeth that are circled and grayed out were to allow the sub to ram an enemy and damage wooden hulled warships. Since we really had no idea how the prop guard may have looked, I decided it may have been similar to the prop guard on the WW II US fleet submarine.
The conning tower was also tricky in that there were no written descriptions of it in any of the press reports. However, Catherine Marzin of NOAA found an illustrated article in the Saturday Evening Post that was published about ten days after the incident when the "Junior" was confiscated by the police. It does show a dome.
I made these Adobe Illustrator plans of deVilleroi's pre-Alligator Salvage Submarine after numerous discussions with submarine historian and artist Jim Christley, Science Channel producer David Clark, NOAA staffer Catherine Marzin who discovered the original deVilleroi plans in Paris, professional modeler David Merriman, and also people involved in the US Navy's hunt for the USS Alligator. This early version of the plan doesn't show the divers' lockout hatch in the first course of plates in the bow just forward of the conning tower. I will be adding that as well. It will probably change as I progress through the construction process.
Cropped Sarmiento engraving.
Since there were no plans found as of yet of this early deVilleroi opus, we took into account the two engravings of the sub that were done around the time it was built and also several newspaper and magazine accounts and descriptions. For instance, neither of the drawings showed bow planes since they would have been under water, but one of the reporters talked about two "pinions". Pinions refer to the studs that stick out from the sides of a cannon. I guess you could say that dive planes look like that to someone who has never seen a submarine.
Another reporter talked about controls that worked rudders on the side of the boat to control depth. We decided planes were reasonable conclusion.
This engraving appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on May 25, 1862 - about a week after the harbor patrol officers put the "Habeas Grabbus" on the sub, suspecting that it was a rebel "infernal machine". Note the domed conning tower and "reverse sharkfin" rudder.
The oddly shaped steering rudders I show are strictly from the two engravings and the WWII fleet sub looking prop guards were called "contrivances to protect the propeller". Since no shroud appeared in the engravings, I decided it must have been something as I have drawn. The prop is typical of Civil War era propellers; three fan-shaped blades with a large blade ratio and large pitch.
The rivets were a compromise between what showed up on the engravings, what machine shop practice of the day was and the rivet work on the H.L. Hunley. Rivet pattern on the H.L. Hunley - photo copyright Friends of the Hunley
If you would like to see some of the documentation related to the Junior, check out the link at the top right side of this page for more information and draw your own conclusions!
