BS: The Turtle Rises Again!

Subject: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:03 PM

Poor CNN doesn't know what to think of the mysterious watercraft that the harbor police have just secured today in New York Harbor. The last time a craft like this was seen was back in 1776, when some rebels put together a semi-submergible barrel called the Turtle to attack one of the British warships in the harbor. The barrel had room for one man who must have been very busy propelling the barrel with a screw propeller. He was supposed to sneak alongside the British ship in the night and attach a mine to its side below the waterline, light the fuse and then stealthly slip away. The Turtle proved impossible to maneuver and he was lucky to escape with his life.

The target of the replica was evidently the Queen Mary II. However, the replica was apprehended while being towed near the Queen Mary by two fellers in a small boat. The pilot didn't get a chance to try an underseas approach.

Someone apparently told CNN about the Revolutionary War incident but the reporters are still clueless.

The police are considering the incident a prank rather than a serious terrorist attempt.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:05 PM

Oh, here's a link to one report: Click here for article

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:34 PM

Well, duh, Charley, what would you think if someone attacked your ship with a submarine! Oh, well, yeah, it's a little outdated but still, there's a war on...

Here's a little know bit of trivia. David Bushnell and Phineas Pratt designed and built their little craft in Westbrook, Connecticut. That is the town that my grandmother lived in. The house was a great old place, perfect for a kid to visit with many secret wonders, swords and cannon balls, ghosts and legends, a secret passage, and an attic full of great old trunks and boxes.

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 06:08 PM

The inspirational part of this story may be the effort the three men had to excercise to empty the barrel, rumoured to have been filled with rum!

I feel a song coming on!

What joy!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 08:19 PM

I spotted this thread at the same time as "Circumcision: pros and cons" got refreshed.

I didn't expect it to be about submarines...

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 08:24 PM

I made the same mistake with "Dog wanted...but what breed."

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:37 PM

Alas, We all must have "turtle recall!"

Art

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:45 PM

Jack and Peace-

Feel free to comment on whether circumcision of dogs should be curtailed, or not.

I'm easy.

So should the song be based on "May the Mary Ellen Carter Rise Again" or "Proud Mary"?
There are not a lot of rhymes for "Turtle" that come to mind other than Myrtre, or hurtle, or fertile.

THE TURTLE CONSPIRACY also sounds like a good title for a clock and dagger story. It's said that the perpertrators came over from the Jersey shore. When they were intercepted by the Coast Guard there was initial confusion over whether they were native speakers or not. The three were doing their best to explain the history behind their re-enactment but their story must have struck the Coast Guard as bizarre, once an interpretor was brought in so that the Coastguardsmen from Georgia could understand the story. The interpretor was the barmaid from the Paris Tavern in South Street. I know her well and she hails from Hoboeken.

Feel free to fill in what I've left out!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Peace
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:50 PM

"Feel free to fill in what I've left out!"

I jus' ain't gonna touch THAT one, Charley.

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 10:23 PM

Follow-up Story:

(CBS) NEW YORK It's a bird, it's a plane ... it's a submarine?

It certainly was not a sight you see every day in New York.

Just what was the make-shift sea craft doing in the waters off Red Hook?

As it bobbed closer to the Queen Mary II the response was immediate and forceful. Police officers with the harbor unit swooped in and found themselves amazed by this homemade underwater craft.

"We've never seen any thing like this before," said Lt. John Smerina of the NYPD's Police Harbor Unit.

Digg This Story!

What they seized was a working replica of a revolutionary war era Turtle submarine. Its creator, Duke Riley, painstakingly recreated it at the Red Hook Woodworks Studio. Friends say when he started on this passion project they were skeptical.

"I didn't think it was going to float honestly," Scott Raffaele said.

Friday's test run was not the first and seemed to go swimmingly until police say the man inside -- confirmed by friends as Riley -- allegedly breached the security zone around the Queen Mary.

Riley and two friends were taken in for questioning. The submarine was towed back to shore.

The Revolutionary War era sub was designed as a naval weapon, and it was meant to drill into a ship's hull and plant a keg of powder, which would be detonated by a time fuse.

Getting in for a closer look, the vessel discovered Friday is 12 feet deep about 8 feet wide. There is a fiberglass shell around some wooden slats and you can see the metal hatch on top.

When we asked if this thing is safe, Lt. Smerina said not a chance.

"Clearly the vessel they were found in is unsafe," Smerina said. "They had no means of steering, very limited if any propulsion and no means of getting out of vessel traffic."

Riley's friends describe him as artistic, inventive and driven, but do not consider him a menace.

"He wouldn't have done anything that was going to kill him or hurt anyone else," Emily Miranda said.

Added friend Dimitri Trinnel: "A toy for the guys, just having fun with it, that's all."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Celtaddict
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:34 AM

Larry Kaplan wrote a song about the original Turtle, alas not recorded; I have heard him sing it, though, years ago and wish I had a recording. The narrator talks about the difficulty of navigation, cramped space, lack of vision, and general claustrophobic effect; the chorus starts,
"Let me out of here!
I can't take it anymore!"

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 09:10 AM

The Larry Kaplan song mentioned rings bell. It may be recorded on a cassette I have.

As a follow-up to this emerging story, I'll contact my niece's husband who runs a music club in Red Hook and just might be able to shed more light on the characters involved and their motives. Did they really intend to sink the Queen Mary 2, or were they just on their usual morning cruise for bagel and lox. Inquiring minds want to know.

I didn't detect any major company logos plastered on the hull of their vessel, but there might have been some below the waterline.

I'm off to Boston for a week so I'll be counting on others to keep this thread nourished until I can report back. I am planning a visit to the U.S. Constitution, but by foot rather than water.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Celtaddict
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 12:22 PM

Charley, I know Larry sang it at Sea Music Festival the year he was on the bill, must be a decade or more ago, so definitely we both heard it and either of us might have a tape somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 08:46 AM

If they visited one of the marina/restaurants near Highlands, inside Sandy Hook [I forgot which one] they may have seen a replica of one of the Turtle's cousins. There were several of these vessels built but, to my understanding Bushnell's was the only one deployed during the Revolution.

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 09:17 AM

I know what you mean,its awful ehen yer bustin for a crap

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 12:02 PM

Prowling about the South Seaport area of Boston today. No sign of any turtles but there's a suspicious set of square-rigged masts near a bridge over the inner harbor. I may investigate.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, amuck in Boston

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Aug 07 - 04:39 PM

Just got a report from my Brother Bob in Brooklyn about the Turtle and its crew. However, since I'm still in Boston and don't have reliable access to a computer I might best wait until I reutrn home before trying to post his update.

My Brother Bob has been known to "blow smoke" before and I best make some attempt to filter what he has to say.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Aug 07 - 04:02 PM

Here's the report from my Brother, resident in Brooklyn:

This thread does tend to take on a life (?) of its own say the least....

There's already talk in the Pentagon (with approval of the Justice Department no less) of sending Alberto Gonzolas over Niagara Falls in the Turtle III - kind of a test run for a potential strike on Canada. Yeah the water flows out of Canada but Homeland Security planners apparently don't know that.

In anticipation of a successful plunge, the Pentagon planners are readying a Dick Cheney version IV - sort of a triple gunport "barrel of the line" version - fortified with sixteen shotguns!

I sure someone is already working on the song...


Charlie Noble's black sheep brother - Bob Ignoble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 01:28 PM

refresh!

Are there no Canadians concerned about this fiendish plot?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 11:10 AM

Hi--Stay tuned on that one. I am in the midst of recording a bunch of things, "Bushnell's Infernal Machine" among them. The chorus goes,

Get me out of here.
Please G-d, get me out of here
No thank you General Washington
Just get me out of here

The replica of the Turtle was (is?) at the Essex, Ct. Connecticut River Museum. The premise of the "vessel" was absolutely implausible...take the equivalent of a pickle barrel, make it "sort of" watertight, rig a hand-crank power train to a propeller, install a corkscrew device overhead to bore holes into British frigates into which then is inserted a charge, bobble up to the underside of a British vessel at night, do the deed, then skedaddle out of there. Bushnell honestly believed someone would be crazy enough to be able to navigate the thing to safety in time to safety, while the warship was being blown up and sunk. What actually happened on the maiden voyage of this thing was after launching, the Tutle got caught in New York Harbor currents and couldn't be controlled. Started drifting out to sea. The Navy had to come and fish it out to the relief of its operator. I honestly can't remember the name of the sailor who was ordered to test fly the Turtle but will check my notes. In any event, I promise I will be recording it this spring. Larry

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 11:49 AM

Neither of the articles claims that the replica was armed, and there's no statement that the Queen Mary was a target; just that the "vessel" (if you can call it that) was "near".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 27 Apr 10 - 07:31 AM

Is the submarine that Dick Miles sings about the one that this replica is based on?

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST,Larry Kaplan
Date: 10 Apr 14 - 11:43 PM

Slower than a Turtle to record this....but alas, I just released my CD on Folk Legacy, entitled, "Songs For An August Moon" and Bushnell's Infernal Machine is one of the recordings on the CD. Not up in digital format (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc) yet, but on the Folk Legacy website.

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 01:20 AM

Jeez, when I first saw the title of this thread, I thought, 'Huh, did turtles decide to take revenge for the turtle that Bobert shot?!?'

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 11 Apr 14 - 08:03 PM

Charley Noble:

In the search for "turtle" rhymes, you missed
"kirtle".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: GUEST,Larry Kaplan
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 05:26 PM

The song's now available on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody,etc.....

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Ed T
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 07:24 PM

Leatherback or loggerhead?

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 03:41 PM

There is an Irishman who invented a submarine to fight the British, no? I am remembering a song, vaguely, about "the first for to voyage 'neath the seas" - the Holland tunnel is named for him? "Some men, for adventure, had planned for the stars, something something Venus or Mars..." is a line I seem to have from it...

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Ed T
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 04:26 PM

Sub history 

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Ed T
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 04:32 PM

Tommy Cox song:

Big Black Submarine 

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 02:25 AM

"...And with his brace and auger,
In her side he bored holes three...?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: The Turtle Rises Again!
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 08:35 AM

The Irish submarine was a bit of a failure after English frogmen knocked on the door...

Ithankyouverymuch.



It's turtles all the way down...........