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“Onboard the Nautilus, Things Were Not as They Seemed…”

[Voiceover]: The Nautilus had no heat or insulation — nothing but bare metal separated them from the frigid Arctic waters. The crew were constantly sickened with food poisoning and dosed with lead from the soldering in the submarine’s pipes. Attempting the pole this late in the season would be extremely dangerous, and without exception everyone wanted to turn around and head home. Everyone except Wilkins.

I “enjoyed” this stressful mini-documentary, from the Mustard Channel, about the ill-fated (but — spoiler? — not THAT ill-fated) 1931 attempt to reach the North Pole by submarine. [via The Browser]

Discussion  1 comment

Andrew Morton

I had to renew my lapsed membership to come suggest that people interested in this give the book Nautilus 90 North a read. I had found a copy and a used bookstore, but it appears to be on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/nautilus90north00ande

Having read about the challenges the second Nautilus faced navigating near the pole where the compass no longer works, I was expecting this one to have ended in tragedy with them lost under the ice.

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