Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol
Encyclopedia
Narcís Monturiol Estarriol (nərˈsis muntuɾiˈɔɫ) (28 September 1819 – 6 September 1885) was a Spanish
Catalan
intellectual
, artist
and engineer
. He was the inventor of the first combustion engine-driven submarine
, which was propelled by an early form of air-independent propulsion
.
, Catalonia
, Spain
. He was the son of a cooper
. Monturiol went to high school in Cervera
and got a law
degree in Barcelona
in 1845. He solved the fundamental problems of underwater navigation. In effect, Monturiol invented the first fully functional submarine.
Monturiol never practiced law, instead turning his talents to writing and publishing, setting up a publishing company in 1846, the same year he married his wife Emilia. He produced a series of journals and pamphlets espousing his radical beliefs in feminism, pacifism, and utopia
n communism. He also founded the newspaper La Madre de Familia, in which he promised "to defend women from the tyranny of men" and La Fraternidad, Spain's first communist newspaper.
Monturiol's friendship with Abdó Terrades led him to join the Republican Party and his circle of friends included such names as musician Josep Anselm Clavé, and engineer and reformist Ildefons Cerdà
. Monturiol also became an enthusiastic follower of the utopian thinker and socialist Étienne Cabet
; he popularised Cabet's ideas through La Fraternidad and produced a Spanish translation of his novel Voyage en Icarie. A circle formed round La Fraternidad raised enough money for one of them to travel to Cabet's utopian community, Icaria
.
Following the revolutions of 1848
, one of his publications was suppressed by the government and he was forced into a brief exile in France. When he returned to Barcelona in 1849, the government curtailed his publishing activities, and he turned his attention to science and engineering instead.
A stay in Cadaqués
allowed him to observe the dangerous job of coral
harvesters where he even witnessed the death of a man who drowned while performing this job. This prompted him to think of submarine navigation and in September 1857 he went back to Barcelona and organized the first commercial society in Catalonia and Spain dedicated to the exploration of submarine navigation with the name of Monturiol, Font, Altadill y Cia. and a capital of 10,000 pesetas
.
In 1858 Monturiol presented his project in a scientific thesis titled The Ictineo or fish-ship. The first dive of his first submarine
, Ictineo I, took place on September 1859 in the harbour of Barcelona.
. It is likely that it was inspired by the prototype Brandtaucher
of Wilhelm Bauer
, that had dived in 1851, as Monturiol studied all the available science of submersibles. The prow was equipped with a set of tools suited to the harvest of coral. During the summer of 1859 Monturiol performed more than 20 dives in the Ictineo, with his business partner and shipbuilder as crew. The Ictineo I turned out to possess good handling, but its top speed was disappointing, as it was limited by the power of human muscles.
The technical success of this submersible brought popular enthusiasm but no support from the government. As a result, Monturiol wrote a letter to the nation and encouraged a popular subscription which raised 300,000 pesetas
from citizens of Spain
and Cuba
.
Ictineo I was eventually destroyed by accident in January 1862, after completing some fifty dives, when a cargo vessel ran into it while it was berthed. With the money obtained from the subscription, the company La Navegación Submarina was formed with the objective of developing the Ictineo II.
A modern replica of the Ictineo I stands in the garden entrance to the Marine Museum in Barcelona.
, the Ictineo II was launched on 2 October 1864. The Ictineo II made her maiden voyage under human power on 20 May 1865, submerging to a depth of 30 metres (98.4 ft). Dissatisfied with the limitations of human propulsion, Monturiol, after much experimentation, invented a chemical combination that generated both heat and oxygen when mixed. With the heat generated by this mixture he hoped to drive a small steam engine, which could also be powered with coal during surface operation.
Monturiol envisaged a new vessel custom-built to house his new engine, which would be entirely built of metal with the engine housed in its own separate compartment. However, due to the state of his finances, construction of a new vessel was out of the question, and instead he managed to assemble enough funds to fit the engine into the Ictineo II.
On 22 October 1867, Ictineo II made its first surface journey under steam power, averaging 3.5 knots (4.3 mph) with a top speed of 4.5 knots (5.5 mph). Two months later, on 14 December, Monturiol submerged the vessel and successfully tested his anaerobic engine but without attempting to travel anywhere.
On 23 December that same year, Monturiol's company went bankrupt and could attract no more investment. The chief creditor called in his debt, and Monturiol was forced to surrender his sole asset, the Ictineo II. The creditor subsequently sold it on to a businessman, and the authorities, who taxed all ships, issued its new owner with a tax bill. Rather than pay the bill, he dismantled the submarine and sold it for scrap. A replica can be seen at the harbour of Barcelona.
(1873), and shortly afterwards became the director of Fabrica Nacional del Timbre (National Stamp
Factory) in Madrid
for a few months, where he implemented a process to speed up the manufacturing of adhesive paper. Monturiol's other inventions included a system for copying letters, a continuous printer, a rapid-firing cannon, a system to enhance the performance of steam generators, a stone cutter, a method for preserving meat, and a machine for making cigarettes.
Monturiol died in 1885, in Sant Martí de Provençals, now a suburb of Barcelona.
employed an anaerobic propulsion system until 1940 when the German Navy tested a system employing the same principles, the Walter
turbine
, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the Type XVII submarines. The problem of air independent propulsion was finally resolved with the construction of the first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus
.
Spain honored Monturiol on a postage stamp in 1987 (purportedly his death centennial; the reason for the discrepancy is unclear).
He has two monuments: one in Barcelona (Avinguda Diagonal-Carrer Girona) and other at the end of the Rambla in Figueres, his native city, better known for another Figuerenc, Salvador Dalí
.
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
Catalan
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
, artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
. He was the inventor of the first combustion engine-driven submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
, which was propelled by an early form of air-independent propulsion
Air-independent propulsion
Air-independent propulsion is a term that encompasses technologies which allow a submarine to operate without the need to surface or use a snorkel to access atmospheric oxygen. The term usually excludes the use of nuclear power, and describes augmenting or replacing the diesel-electric propulsion...
.
Biography
Monturiol i Estarriol was born in the city of FigueresFigueres
Figueres is the capital of the comarca of Alt Empordà, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain.The town is the birthplace of artist Salvador Dalí, and houses the Teatre-Museu Gala Salvador Dalí, a large museum designed by Dalí himself which attracts many visitors...
, Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. He was the son of a cooper
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...
. Monturiol went to high school in Cervera
Cervera
Cervera is the capital of the comarca of Segarra, in the province of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. The title Compte de Cervera is a courtesy title, formerly part of the Crown of Aragon, that has been revived for Felipe, Prince of Asturias....
and got a law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
degree in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in 1845. He solved the fundamental problems of underwater navigation. In effect, Monturiol invented the first fully functional submarine.
Monturiol never practiced law, instead turning his talents to writing and publishing, setting up a publishing company in 1846, the same year he married his wife Emilia. He produced a series of journals and pamphlets espousing his radical beliefs in feminism, pacifism, and utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n communism. He also founded the newspaper La Madre de Familia, in which he promised "to defend women from the tyranny of men" and La Fraternidad, Spain's first communist newspaper.
Monturiol's friendship with Abdó Terrades led him to join the Republican Party and his circle of friends included such names as musician Josep Anselm Clavé, and engineer and reformist Ildefons Cerdà
Ildefons Cerdà
Ildefons Cerdà i Sunyer was the progressive Catalan Spanish urban planner who designed the 19th-century "extension" of Barcelona called the Eixample.-Biography:...
. Monturiol also became an enthusiastic follower of the utopian thinker and socialist Étienne Cabet
Étienne Cabet
Étienne Cabet was a French philosopher and utopian socialist. He was the founder of the Icarian movement and led a group of emigrants to found a new society in the United States.-Biography:...
; he popularised Cabet's ideas through La Fraternidad and produced a Spanish translation of his novel Voyage en Icarie. A circle formed round La Fraternidad raised enough money for one of them to travel to Cabet's utopian community, Icaria
Icarians
The Icarians were a French utopian movement, founded by Étienne Cabet, who led his followers to America where they established a group of egalitarian communes during the period from 1848 through 1898.-European roots:Étienne Cabet was born in France in 1788...
.
Following the revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
, one of his publications was suppressed by the government and he was forced into a brief exile in France. When he returned to Barcelona in 1849, the government curtailed his publishing activities, and he turned his attention to science and engineering instead.
A stay in Cadaqués
Cadaqués
Cadaqués is a town in the Alt Empordà comarca, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain. It is on a bay in the middle of the Cap de Creus peninsula, near Cap de Creus cape, on the Costa Brava of the Mediterranean...
allowed him to observe the dangerous job of coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
harvesters where he even witnessed the death of a man who drowned while performing this job. This prompted him to think of submarine navigation and in September 1857 he went back to Barcelona and organized the first commercial society in Catalonia and Spain dedicated to the exploration of submarine navigation with the name of Monturiol, Font, Altadill y Cia. and a capital of 10,000 pesetas
Spanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...
.
In 1858 Monturiol presented his project in a scientific thesis titled The Ictineo or fish-ship. The first dive of his first submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
, Ictineo I, took place on September 1859 in the harbour of Barcelona.
Ictineo I
Ictineo I had dimensions of 7 m (23 ft) long, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide, and 3.5 m (11.5 ft) deep, and its intended use was to ease the harvest of coralCoral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...
. It is likely that it was inspired by the prototype Brandtaucher
Brandtaucher
Brandtaucher was a submersible designed by the German inventor and engineer Wilhelm Bauer and built by Schweffel & Howaldt in Kiel for Schleswig-Holstein's Flotilla in 1850....
of Wilhelm Bauer
Wilhelm Bauer
Wilhelm Bauer was the German inventor and engineer, who built several hand-powered submarines.-Biography:...
, that had dived in 1851, as Monturiol studied all the available science of submersibles. The prow was equipped with a set of tools suited to the harvest of coral. During the summer of 1859 Monturiol performed more than 20 dives in the Ictineo, with his business partner and shipbuilder as crew. The Ictineo I turned out to possess good handling, but its top speed was disappointing, as it was limited by the power of human muscles.
The technical success of this submersible brought popular enthusiasm but no support from the government. As a result, Monturiol wrote a letter to the nation and encouraged a popular subscription which raised 300,000 pesetas
Spanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...
from citizens of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
.
Ictineo I was eventually destroyed by accident in January 1862, after completing some fifty dives, when a cargo vessel ran into it while it was berthed. With the money obtained from the subscription, the company La Navegación Submarina was formed with the objective of developing the Ictineo II.
A modern replica of the Ictineo I stands in the garden entrance to the Marine Museum in Barcelona.
Ictineo II
Intended as an improved version of the Ictineo IIctineo I
Ictineo I was a pioneering submarine constructed in 1858–1859 by Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol, and the predecessor of his later Ictineo II.-Design and development:...
, the Ictineo II was launched on 2 October 1864. The Ictineo II made her maiden voyage under human power on 20 May 1865, submerging to a depth of 30 metres (98.4 ft). Dissatisfied with the limitations of human propulsion, Monturiol, after much experimentation, invented a chemical combination that generated both heat and oxygen when mixed. With the heat generated by this mixture he hoped to drive a small steam engine, which could also be powered with coal during surface operation.
Monturiol envisaged a new vessel custom-built to house his new engine, which would be entirely built of metal with the engine housed in its own separate compartment. However, due to the state of his finances, construction of a new vessel was out of the question, and instead he managed to assemble enough funds to fit the engine into the Ictineo II.
On 22 October 1867, Ictineo II made its first surface journey under steam power, averaging 3.5 knots (4.3 mph) with a top speed of 4.5 knots (5.5 mph). Two months later, on 14 December, Monturiol submerged the vessel and successfully tested his anaerobic engine but without attempting to travel anywhere.
On 23 December that same year, Monturiol's company went bankrupt and could attract no more investment. The chief creditor called in his debt, and Monturiol was forced to surrender his sole asset, the Ictineo II. The creditor subsequently sold it on to a businessman, and the authorities, who taxed all ships, issued its new owner with a tax bill. Rather than pay the bill, he dismantled the submarine and sold it for scrap. A replica can be seen at the harbour of Barcelona.
Later life
In 1868 Monturiol returned to political life. A member of the Partido Federal, he was a deputy in the Constituent Assembly of the First Spanish RepublicFirst Spanish Republic
The First Spanish Republic was the political regime that existed in Spain between the parliamentary proclamation on 11 February 1873 and 29 December 1874 when General Arsenio Martínez-Campos's pronunciamento marked the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain...
(1873), and shortly afterwards became the director of Fabrica Nacional del Timbre (National Stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
Factory) in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
for a few months, where he implemented a process to speed up the manufacturing of adhesive paper. Monturiol's other inventions included a system for copying letters, a continuous printer, a rapid-firing cannon, a system to enhance the performance of steam generators, a stone cutter, a method for preserving meat, and a machine for making cigarettes.
Monturiol died in 1885, in Sant Martí de Provençals, now a suburb of Barcelona.
Legacy
No other submarineSubmarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
employed an anaerobic propulsion system until 1940 when the German Navy tested a system employing the same principles, the Walter
Hellmuth Walter
Hellmuth Walter was a German engineer who pioneered research into rocket engines and gas turbines...
turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the Type XVII submarines. The problem of air independent propulsion was finally resolved with the construction of the first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus
USS Nautilus (SSN-571)
USS Nautilus is the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine. She was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit beneath the North Pole on August 3, 1958...
.
Spain honored Monturiol on a postage stamp in 1987 (purportedly his death centennial; the reason for the discrepancy is unclear).
He has two monuments: one in Barcelona (Avinguda Diagonal-Carrer Girona) and other at the end of the Rambla in Figueres, his native city, better known for another Figuerenc, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
.
External links
- Monturiol, a forgotten submariner; by Thomas Holian in Undersea Warfare
- http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/monturiols-dream-by-matthew-stewart-537440.htmlcritic on Monturiols dream written by Matthew StewartMatthew Stewart (philosopher).Matthew Stewart is a philosopher and author currently living in Santa Barbara, California. He is the author of The Truth About Everything, Monturiol's Dream, The Courtier and the Heretic, and The Management Myth . He has a bachelor's degree from Princeton, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Oxford...
]