Four hundred years later, this novel voyage would inspire another landmark exercise in circumnavigation.
Except, this one would be conducted in a nuclear-powered submarine and the voyage would be conducted wholly underwater.
USS Triton undergoing sea trials.
Captain Evan P. Aurand was interested in launching a nuclear-powered submarine on a circumnavigation of the earth.
In August 1958 theUSS Nautilushad made a completely submerged transit of the North Pole.
Undersea route of USS Triton.
Photo:U.S. Navy
So it was decided and Operation Sandblast was born.
She was 447 feet long and had a submerged displacement of nearly 8,000 ton.
Only a handful of submarines are capable of such speeds even today.
All repairs were conducted while submerged.
Keeping the crew busy during this long period had been the biggest challenge for the captain.
Wednesdays had the crew on reduced activities that is traditionally known as Rope Yarn Sunday.
Saturdays had regular activities with afternoon drills, and Sundays had reduced activities with normal watches and religious observances.
Keeping the ship clean itself had been a challenge.
It was 84 days of strenuous work just keeping the ship clean.
It was amazing how much dirt we created, so I had a field day every weekend.
The crew started objecting until they saw how much trash we kept getting rid of.
Then they couldn’t object, Captain Beach said.
Captain Beach traces the route of Triton’s submerged circumnavigation.
They also made a continuous record of variations in earth’s gravity field throughout Triton’s circumnavigation.
These scientific data gathered during Operation Sandblast continued to be invaluable in providing information on oceanic changes.
Like the voyage of Magellan, that of theTritoncreated stirring philosophical concepts.
