Trieste (bathyscaphe)
Trieste shortly after her purchase by the US Navy in 1958
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| History | |
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 Free Territory of Trieste
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| Name: | Trieste |
| Builder: | Acciaierie Terni/Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico |
| Launched: | 26 August 1953 |
| Fate: | Sold to the United States Navy, 1958 |
 United States
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| Name: | Trieste |
| Acquired: | 1958 |
| Decommissioned: | 1966 |
| Reclassified: | DSV-0, 1 June 1971 |
| Fate: | Preserved as an exhibit in the U.S. Navy Museum |
| Badge: |  |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Bathyscaphe |
| Displacement: | 50 long tons (51 Mg) |
| Length: | 59 ft 6 in (18.14 m) |
| Beam: | 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m) |
| Draft: | 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) |
| Complement: | Two |
Trieste is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe, which with its crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 10,911 metres (35,797 ft), in the deepest known part of the Earth's oceans, the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard (son of the boat's designer Auguste Piccard) and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh achieved the goal of Project Nekton.
Trieste was the first manned vessel to have reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.
Trieste consisted of a float chamber filled with gasoline (petrol) for buoyancy, with a separate pressure sphere to hold the crew. This configuration (dubbed a "bathyscaphe" by the Piccards), allowed for a free dive, rather than the previous bathysphere designs in which a sphere was lowered to depth and raised again to the surface by a cable attached to a ship.
Trieste was designed by the Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard and originally built in Italy. His pressure sphere, composed of two sections, was built by the company Acciaierie Terni. The upper part was manufactured by the company Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico, in the Free Territory of Trieste (on the border between Italy and Yugoslavia); hence the name chosen for the bathyscaphe. The installation of the pressure sphere was done in the Cantiere navale di Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. Trieste was launched on 26 August 1953 into the Mediterranean Sea near the Isle of Capri. The design was based on previous experience with the bathyscaphe FNRS-2. Trieste was operated by the French Navy. After several years of operation in the Mediterranean Sea, the Trieste was purchased by the United States Navy in 1958 for $250,000.
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