This reminds me of the Caterpillar drive from The Hunt For Red October.

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Silent Sea Engine for Nuclear Subs

A magnetic pump with no moving parts, this simple device may propel our submarines silently along the ocean floor

By JAMES G. BUSSE

In the silent world of underwater warfare, the slightest noise can bring sudden death to a submarine. The electronic ears of the enemy can detect conventional engines and screw propellers as far as 100 miles away. A computer interprets the sounds and directs a deadly homing torpedo to their source in minutes. How do you go about maneuvering a 3,260-ton nuclear submarine without making a sound? Two medical researchers at St. Louis University’s School of Medicine may have found the answer—a revolutionary undersea propulsion unit dubbed the “sea engine.” Read the rest of this entry »

Aquatic telephones let skin divers talk under water

This swimmie-talkie uses water as a medium for sending high-frequency sound waves, on the principle of the hydrophone employed in the early 1900′s for communicating between ships, and in World War I for detecting submarines. Being adjusted here on a frogman, the Aquavox includes a face-mask mike, transducer (on belt, left), transceiver (right), earphones (on thigh). Cotton Associates, Philadelphia, developed it.

Getting there is half the fun!

Autumn is ideal for your visit to Europe… when Britain and the Continent are at their sparkling, uncrowded best… and ideal, too, for a gay, relaxing ocean voyage! When you go Cunard, each day at sea and each brilliant, enchanted evening is a glorious new adventure shared with interesting companions amid all the comforts of a great seaside resort. Read the rest of this entry »

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LIFE ABOARD BATTLEWAGON

By Lt. Com. John T. Tuthill, Jr.

As described in his book “He’s in the Navy Now”

THE alarm sounds for general quarters. Across the steel decks of the mighty new battle wagon the bluejacket races on the double to his gun station in a turret.

He takes his appointed place near the monster weapon and waits, tense and overwrought while the rest of the gun crew tumble into the turret. A sudden hush falls on the scene and he notices that the other sailors are poised as taut as stretched strings. It’s like playing football on the high school team, back in Tennessee. They’re a team waiting for the quarterback to call signals. Read the rest of this entry »

And thus “Deadliest Catch” was born.

U.S. Tries Alaskan Crabbing To Prove It Economical

TO PROVE that the Japanese are not the only fishermen who can catch crabs, the Fisheries Division of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service last summer dispatched an expedition to Alaskan waters. The United States imports annually almost $4,000,000 worth of canned crab meat, much of it king crab caught near Alaska. Read the rest of this entry »

Speed Boat May Cross Atlantic in 30 Hours

MESSIEURS Moyne and Clement, French inventors, have devised a remarkable new type of speed boat with circular fins that they expect will propel their new submarine shaped craft across the Atlantic ocean in 30 hours. The model of the craft is being put through tests. There are stabilizing fins at the bow and stern. The principle of operation included two helices rotating in opposite directions to counteract torque. Read the rest of this entry »

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RAISING the German Fleet

By JOSEPH W. GRIGG, Jr.

TOILING in the icy depths of Scapa Flow, the broad landlocked harbor in the Orkney Isles, north of Scotland, British engineers and divers today are enacting what probably will be hailed some day as the greatest salvaging epic in the history of the sea.

Though the world at large hears but little of their feats, they are dragging to the surface one by one of the giants of Germany’s once proud High Seas Fleet, now battered rusted hulks, which have lain for 17 years fathoms-deep beneath the swirling waters of Scapa. The iron from some of those very ships is being used today by the modern Germany of Adolf Hitler in the great European armaments race. Read the rest of this entry »

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On the FIRE – A PREVIEW OF TOMORROW IN SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY

• In the field of detecting and measuring atomic radiation there’s a new dual-purpose Dosage-Rate Survey Meter (see illustrations above) designed by scientists of the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. When held upright, this 1/2 lb., pocket-size instrument gives a direct reading of radiation intensity in a range of 0-100 milliroentgens per hour (the lower range encountered in laboratory health surveys where radioactive materials are used). Read the rest of this entry »

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Giant Slingshots of the Navy

by Rear Admiral E. R. Stitt (U.S.N.)
and Lt. Com. J. C. Adams (U.S.N.)

Senior Flight Surgeon, Aircraft Squadrons
Fighting seaplanes of Uncle Sam’s navy are launched into the air by means of powerful catapults which throw them into the air like giant slingshots. This is only one of the unusual stunts which naval flyers are required to perform—which explains why only the most perfect pilots win the title of “naval aviator.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Making SUBMARINES SAFE for SAILORS

by ROY DEAN

NINETY-NINE men who have perished at the bottom of the sea in the thirteen American submarine disasters since the E-4 went down off Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on March 25, 1915, may not have died in vain. Spurred on by their heroic sacrifice —and particularly by the loss of the 73 who perished in the S-51 off Block Island and the S-4, rammed and sunk by the Coast Guard Destroyer Paulding off Providence— the navy has at last perfected a complete group of submarine rescue devices which are expected to save all who escape the first rush of water and find refuge in watertight compartments. Read the rest of this entry »

This kind of reminds me of the Boat Church in Ian McDonald’s excellent book Brasyl.

Church Goes To Sea

WHEN the congregation can’t go to church, the church goes to the congregation, along the Parana River in the Argentine.

This floating church, 108 feet long, has steeple, stained glass windows and altar. Built in the government’s Buenos Aires shipyard, the hull of an old vessel was transformed into a church by the Lincoln arc-weld process.

Before this floating church made its appearance, many of the church-goers of that section were unable to attend formal worship.

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Bridge of Boats to Guide Trans-Atlantic Air Mail

by BEVERLY BARNES

Within a few weeks you’ll be able to drop a letter in your local mail box and have it delivered in Europe in a few hours, carried by airplane all the way. How this trans-Atlantic air mail will be guided by a bridge of boats or seadromes is explained in this timely article.

THE “bridge of boats” which America rushed to completion thirteen years ago to carry an American army to France and help win the war, may become a bridge again to guide the first trans-oceanic air mail line across the North Atlantic.
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