It was a lucky accident that the bullheaded inventor the SSC chose to build the device knew more about radio than he knew about the sea.įour days before the Titanic disaster SSC executive Harold Fay ran into an old acquaintance, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, at a Boston train station.
Though the SSC was slow to realize the device’s potential, the invention would eventually transform marine warfare and our understanding of the ocean.
Within two years the SSC would possess a technology that could prevent another such disaster-a device that used underwater echoes to measure distance. Then on April 14, 1912, a gigantic steamer making its maiden voyage across the Atlantic slammed into an iceberg and sank, killing more than 1,500 people and turning the public’s attention to marine safety. Because sound travels farther in water than in air, the ringing of the heavy underwater bells would have a much greater range than anything projected from a lighthouse.īy 1912 the SSC had installed more than a hundred bell arrays along coastlines in North America, Europe, and Asia. Ships outfitted with underwater microphones-called hydrophones-would listen for the bong of the bells and follow the sound to safe harbor. Their plan, proposed by the American Lighthouse Board 12 years earlier, was to create a system of underwater bells to guide ships around the most dangerous rocks, reefs, and shallows. In 1901 a group of engineers formed the Submarine Signal Company (SSC) to address the fog problem.
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