Robert Fulton the "Nautilus", the first practical submarine in history. Fulton is also credited with inventing some of the world's earliest naval torpedoes for use by the British Royal Navy. Fulton became interested in steam engines and the idea of steamboats in 1777 when he was around age 12 and visited state delegate William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who was interested in this topic. Henry had learned about inventor James Watt and his Watt steam engine on an earlier visit to England. Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1765. He had three sisters –
J-class submarine previous engines and produced 1,200 shaft horsepower at 380 revolutions per minute. These engines eventually went into the J, L and M-class submarines. The design featured four bow tubes and two beam tubes for torpedoes; they were the first British submarines to carry four bow tubes. Although designed to reach , the boats could only practically travel at , making them too slow for fleet use. The quest for fleet submarine performance turned toward the subsequent, steam powered K class. The endurance of the J class was considerably greater than previous submarines. Eight boats were originally ordered, although two were