Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

We had plotted our course to travel the length of the Atlantic Ocean twice: first, on a southerly track; and second, on the return leg, on a northerly course. The shortest route brought us close to South America on our way to Cape Horn; and our return put us on a course for the bulge of Africa after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. From there, we could head for Spain. But following this course had a great disadvantage: though we would two times have traveled the length of the Atlantic, the earth would not be girdled until we closed the gap between our nearly parallel north-south tracks—until arrival home, in other words. Yet by a relatively slight diversion, we could intersect our original track somewhere near the equator. Completing our circumnavigation at the equator made sense, for if our radioed instructions from Washington for the ceremony off Spain called for us to surface the ship, we might be forced to break our submergence record.

Operationally, there was no legitimate reason for a diversion; but morale is most important in ships on long, lonely voyages like ours. It would take us a few extra days—three as I recall—and after urgent argument in Washington it had been agreed that the circumnavigational part of our trip should be completed before any ceremonies, and should have a starting and ending point which could be photographed. A suitable spot was a tiny islet in the mid-Atlantic some fifty miles north of the equator, marked on the chart as “St. Peter and St. Paul’s Rocks.” And it was there, we decided, we would close our loop around the earth. After that, we could surface if necessary without giving ammunition to some technically-minded heckler. But we hoped to go the entire route submerged anyway, as a submarine should, and we had made preparations to photograph the “Rocks” through the periscope, while submerged.

Before dawn on the morning of the seventeenth of February, we brought Triton to periscope depth for morning star sights and for ventilation. The necessity of doing this was a far greater restriction on our progress than might at first appear, for with periscopes raised the ship had to proceed at slow speed. If Triton were to make all the speed of which she is capable, an extended periscope would be seriously damaged, or possibly snapped off at the base, by the force of driving through the water. In addition, before coming to periscope depth, one must first listen cautiously at slow speed for surface ships in the vicinity. The entire process—slowing down, changing course to listen on various bearings and at various depths, coming up and then remaining at slow speed for a variety of purposes while at periscope depth—takes considerable time. Naturally, the time is programmed for the maximum possible use. Not much can be done with the time spent coming up, but while at periscope depth, in addition to making celestial observations, we can raise our air-induction mast and pump in a good fresh supply of air (thus preserving our precious oxygen supply); we try to pick up a news broadcast on our tape recorder for later rerun; and, since there is less resistance from pressure of the sea at shallow depths, it is easier to eject our garbage and to blow out our refuse from the sanitary tanks.

But every minute spent at reduced speed requires many times that minute to recover the distance lost. Every hour was precious, because the high “speed of advance” (SOA) required to complete the trip within the allotted time did not give even Triton’s fabulous power plant much leeway. One of our objectives was to determine the limiting factors of sustained high speed, and there was little doubt that the test would be pretty conclusive.