Nicholas Roosevelt (inventor) 74-gun ships. In 1797, with Robert R. Livingston and John Stevens, he agreed to build a boat on joint account, for which the engines were to be constructed by Roosevelt, and the propelling agency was to be that planned by Livingston. The experiment failed, the speed attained being only equivalent to about in still water. On September 6, 1798, Roosevelt described and earnestly recommended to Livingston a vertical wheel, which is the first practical suggestion of the combination that made steam navigation a commercial success, although four years later Robert Fulton believed that chains and floats were alone to be
Submarine it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably "H. L. Hunley", the submarine that deployed it. Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was "Nordenfelt I", a 56-tonne, vessel similar to Garrett's ill-fated "Resurgam" (1879), with a range of , armed with a single torpedo, in 1885. A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery