The Peral Submarine

One of the English exercises I use asks students to finish the sentence "If Meucci hadn't invented the phone....." It's about third conditionals I think. The idea is that the students come up with phrases such as - if Bill Gates hadn't invented Windows we wouldn't have needed four fingers to unlock an unresponsive computer. If that's not a third conditional do forgive me. Grammar isn't my strong point.

Nobody, except his mum, knows who Meucci is but if I ask who invented the submarine then anyone who lives in Cartagena knows the answer. It was Isaac Peral and he was born in the city. In fact he didn't really invent the submarine but he did design the first one that had all the basic ingredients of the conventional submarines we know today. His submarine was launched in 1888. It did well in its sea tests and he was asked to build a bigger and more powerful version. Unfortunately for him some internal disputes in the Spanish Navy meant that the project was abandoned.

The Peral Submarine was withdrawn from service in 1890, the equipment was removed and the hull stored. In 1913 she was scheduled for breaking but for some Spanish reason it never happened and in 1929 Admiral Mateo García de los Reyes, the first commander of the Spanish submarine fleet, reclaimed the hull and towed it to the new submarine base in Cartagena.

In the mid sixties Cartagena City Council arranged for the submarine to be displayed in a square, Plaza de los Héroes de Cavite, close to the port where, apart from a little jaunt down to Seville in 1992 for the Expo, it stayed till 2002. In that year it was moved again to the spot where we first encountered it looking out over the port from the marine promenade.

Last year, in need of some serious restoration work and aboard a low loader, the submarine trundled the other direction along the seafront. The Peral's new home was a long, low, shedlike building alongside the Naval Museum and next to Spanish Submarine Fleet base in the Arsenal.

The conservation work on the boat and the refurbishment of the building were finsihed a few months ago but, as I no longer live in Cartagena, it took me till yesterday to get down there to have a look. To be honest the submarine didn't look much different to how it looked when it was much more visible on the seafront. Nonetheless I thought the whole exhibition was pretty good and the Navy band practicing for their concert to "welcome the submarine home" that evening added something to the experience.

Just across the harbour the Navantia shipyard is buildng the new S-80 series submarines. I've seen models of the new boat - it looks sleek, purposeful and sinister. Unfortunately for we taxpayers the project has been plagued with setbacks and it is now way behind schedule and way over budget.

One of the original order of four boats, the S-81, will be called the Isaac Peral.