The Catalog
of 
Nautilus Designs

The submarine in the 1916 silent movie in the surface views seems partly based on original illustrations with a small pilothouse forward.  The deck is narrower and there seems to be a prow, not unlike submarines of the time.  The underwater views of the Nautilus are less accurate. Although cigar shaped, the hull is much shorter than it should be in proportion to the width. There are two sets of diving planes, one somewhat forward and one somewhat aft.  The ram has been replaced with torpedo tubes. (See my 20,000 Leagues page for information on a video of this film).

~ c. 1920 ~

Milo Winter illustrated the 1954 Rand McNally Windermere Readers edition of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.  His design features large hull plates, overlapping fore to aft.  The paintings of Illinois watercolorist Winter (1888-1956) first appeared in a 1922 juvenile edition published by Rand McNally & Company.  You can see the color plates in Zvi Har'El virtual library - F. P. Walter's translation.  The pilothouse and lantern appear very similar, suggesting fore and aft windowed structures with lanterns set on top.  All of Winter's paintings show the Nautilus on the surface and I've made no attempt to extrapolate such hidden features as salon windows, prop, or diving planes.  As with all the illustrator collections, proportions and feature locations and shapes vary from illustration to illustration, so the recreation is approximate at best.

~ c. 1930 ~

Anton Otto Fischer (1882-1962) illustrated the John C. Winston  Company 20,000 Leagues edition published about 1932.  This design features a low, eight-windowed cabin at each end of a flat deck.  There is what is likely a dinghy running a good length of the deck between the cabins.  A drawing of the Nautilus breaching gives a view of the spar and a dive plane far forward.  Another drawing shows a rather small, rectangular window in the side of the hull.  I've placed the window arbitrarily, but not speculated on any other un-pictured features.  
 

~ c. 1940 ~

Kurt Wiese (1887-1974) illustrated the 1946 Rainbow Classics edition of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.  His design features similar large, flat, streamlined cabins at each end of the deck.  One illustration shows what may be the dinghy midway between these structures and looking very much like them.  An underwater view shows a square salon window that I've placed approximately but no features other than the ram are pictured.  I've made no attempt to recreate un-pictured details.  Wiese's Nautilus resembles Fischer's, most obvious in his drawing of the submarine breaching.  There is some difference in detail, but this drawing is nearly identical to that by the earlier artist, so there can be little doubt Fischer was a source for Wiese's concept.

~ c. 1950 ~

~ c. 1960 ~

Pierre Garcin sent me photos of this model, which may be from a 1960s ORTF (Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française) production of Mysterious Island.  The model has an interesting history.  Fabrice Mestrot (president of TOYMANIA and a collector of toy boats and subs) found it in 2002 at the Paris Arsenal antique show.  The antiquarian at the show had gotten it in a small navy craft shop in the old harbor of St-Malo, Brittany.  The owner of that shop bought it from a retired sailor and fan of Jules Verne, who told him he found the sub through a special effects specialist associated with ORTF before its restructuring at the end of 70s.  (The photo from which my image was made is © 2007-P.Fautrat/Envie d'Image.) 

Don Irwing illustrated the 1968 Classic Press, Inc. (Santa Rosa, California) edition of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.  The simple design is a slightly modified spindle with a plain, needle-shaped ram.  The only features visible are large: wheel house, dive planes, and salon window.  The tail isn't visible in the images I have, so I've left it off my illustration here.  Thanks to Jürgen Guerrero Kommritz for telling me about this Nautilus.  

~ c. 1980 ~

Science fiction illustrator Vincent Di Fate created this 1980 Nautilus design for Di Fate's Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware.  See this and other artwork on his web site.  Monsters in Motion sells a replica 20,000 Leagues under the Sea Nautilus Aurora plastic model kit box featuring Di Fate's art on the cover.  Although there was never such a kit, the box represents the kit model builders would like to have seen.  The sub's hull is more or less spindle shaped with a faceted cross section not unlike Goff's.  The massive wheelhouse, with oddly back-facing ports making it resemble a nautilus-like sea creature, dominates the deck.  Rather than a single window, a row of smaller ports provide outside views.  
     In 2007 Pierre-Yves Garcin commissioned Bernard Brimeur to build the Nautilus shown on the box for his Mobilis in Mobile on-line museum.  The illustration at right pictures Brimeur's realization next to the commemorative box.  See large photos of the box (box-art section) and the model (science fiction anthologies section) on the museum web site.  The museum is viewable both in French and in English.

Jim Humphries' design for his rubber-band powered Nautilus model was published in the December 1987 Scale Ship Modeler, but he actually designed it in the early 1980s. Jim used the novel's woodcut illustrations as his main source and his lantern and platform are especially faithful to de Neuville's renditions of these structures. The wheelhouse has Verne's four windows and an original organic look. The large front windows facing off at an angle are reminiscent of Goff's, a very reasonable reference to that memorable boat. Jim's is a working model with the two sets of planes needed for proper operation. He started without a vertical fin, but found lateral stability required it and incorporated the fish-like tail with another nod to Goff. The model lacks a launch and the salon window is too far aft. The propeller is three bladed, an oversight that Jim intends to fix.
    For those with a well-equipped woodshop, Jim sells a very detailed set of instructions and plans for constructing this versatile model. It dives and surfaces and can even be made to breach like a whale, just as the Nautilus does in "The Sargasso Sea" chapter, all on rubber-band power. Contact Jim directly via e-mail (jfhjr@flash.net) for information.  See Björn Lundberg's construction from Jim's plans here.

One of the most carefully executed depictions of the Nautilus I've seen is Ron Miller's design in all his Unicorn editions.  The hull has a fully tapered cigar shape and the salon windows are rectangular, which may well have been Verne's intent. The platform is slightly elevated with the longboat in the center and structures placed as Verne described them.  There are a few embellishments, some I think reminiscent of Goff's Nautilus, but none in conflict with the novel. In general this Nautilus, with its retractable pilothouse, is truer to Verne than mine.

Since the publication of Ron Miller's several Unicorn volumes he's incorporated some improvements to his design. Notice the placement of the rudder out of the propeller wake. (Although Ron's illustrations usually have the deck railings lowered, I've shown them on both models for comparison with the other designs.)

This spindle-hulled Nautilus with its distinctive barbed spur was created by illustrator Joseph Ciardiello for a Reader's Digest Association edition published around 1990.  Except for the relatively small, two-bladed prop, it appears to follow Verne's text well.  The position of the long boat was not obvious in the drawings so I omitted it from the model. 

When Greg Sharpe saw Jim Humphries rubber-band model he had to have one and Jim's design became the basis for Deep Sea Designs' first Nautilus, published several times in the early 1990s. This model can be built from detailed plans available from Deep Sea Designs. It has a non-elevated deck with a hidden launch. The wheelhouse, taken almost directly from the Humphries boat and like many of the other designs shown here, has a diamond shape with two large, canted, forward-facing windows, somewhat reminiscent of Goff’s design. The ram is a cylindrical cone rather than Verne’s triangular shape and the fish-like stern is clearly based on Goff's. There is a diving hatch in the keel near the stern very like Goff's. The round salon window is positioned too far astern for the novel’s interior description. In appearance the model resembles Goff’s but, especially with its prominent fin-like diving planes, looks more fishlike and less reptilian. Greg has a working version of this design.

Another Nautilus design available from Deep Sea Designs is closer to Verne’s description than the first. The deck is raised slightly to provide some additional space for retracting the pilothouse and lantern. Two hatches are recessed into the deck. The launch is also recessed and stowed upside-down. This permits entry from the Nautilus through a hatch in the launch’s deck rather than its hull. Of course it must roll over on its trip to the surface, causing the occupants some discomfit. There is a davit to handle it on the surface. The salon window is too far astern, although it is consistent with the interior arrangement on the plan. This is a working design with two sets of diving planes, one near the stern and the other in the fin structure at the bow.

Bjorn Lundberg sent me an interesting article from a 1996 issue of Model Ship Builder.  Using numerous citations from the novel, the author, Jeff Phillips, discusses details of the Nautilus design, and raises some technical issues also mentioned elsewhere on these pages.  He carefully evaluates some conflicts in the text and describes a particularly true design. Like Ian Williams and for the same reason, he places the ram above the centerline.  He attempts to solve some of the problems with the lantern by making it taller than the wheelhouse.  That structure still casts a large shadow forward, and Jeff suggests Nemo's design would be improved by several better positioned lights rather than one.  His design has a very large salon window, filling, as he says, "most of the area of the salon".  Although he scrutinized the description of the structure, he neglected the contents.  Nemo's art collection requires a good deal of wall space, limiting the window size.

Stan Sanders has built a Nautilus model with some noticeable differences. The most significant feature is the stern with its low mounted screw. I originally thought Stan had placed the lantern between the deck and the pilothouse, but closer examination of the pictures revealed a second lantern astern. The illustration of the Nautilus in the cavern in the Hetzel Mysterious Island has lanterns rather like these.  The lanterns and the pilothouse appear retractable and the launch is at least partially recessed into the deck. There are a couple of features clearly derived from Goff's design. I've reconstructed the design from a set of small black and white pictures so some proportions and details are speculative. The aft diving planes, typical of the working models, are prominent in the pictures, but the location of a forward set is my best guess.

Paul Wright's version in the new Eyewitness Classics children's book is based on Miller's but he has taken some liberties inconsistent with the novel. There is a horizontal tail rather like a modern submarine with, apparently, a second set of planes. The triangular ram has been replaced with a cruciform one. The rectangular salon window is now round. The most glaring revision is the raising of the platform into a sort of conning tower, perhaps to better resemble a modern sub. The deck hatch no longer opens on the platform, but on the hull. There are several other cosmetic, non-conflicting embellishments.

John Dutton has modified his working Nautilus model sub, originally built from a Deep Sea Designs plan published in R/C Ship Modeling (Vol. 1, No.1).  He's incorporated numerous new ideas, including a feature or two from my design.  The wheelhouse now has a forward-facing window with a headlight mounted on top.  He has retained two sets of diving planes along the side of the hull, a practical consideration for any working model.  Diving planes at the "center of floatation" where Verne positions them, provide less control than the fore and aft planes found on modern subs.  John has told me the circular salon window is stronger and less likely to leak than other shapes.  John's web site has disappeared from the Internet, but with John's permission, Didier Jaffrédo is now hosting many of the pictures of the new sub in action .

Greg Rico drew this Nautilus in the mid 1990s.  It has more classic lines than his later armored, steam punk designs, featured below.  The deck is in a smoothly faired superstructure marked only by the deck scuppers along the sides and the recessed wheelhouse windows.  This gives the boat an overall clean appearance.  The lantern is mounted just aft of the deck atop the superstructure.  There are two sets of horizontal fins, the forward fins incorporating small diving planes.  The salon windows are recessed in the hull just below the forward fins. 

 

 

The hole punched in the Scotia's hull is described as two and a half meters below her waterline, but Nemo says he was traveling two meters below the surface when the collision occurred.  This would place the Nautilus's centerline more than six meters deep.  Ian Williams' design, illustrated here, addresses this problem by raising the ram to match the hole.  The ram in this position also addresses a similar issue.  During the trip to the South Pole, Aronnax describes the Nautilus using its ram as an icebreaker as it crosses the Antarctic ice shelf on the surface.  Perhaps this could be done with a centerline ram but it seems to me the force would tend to drive the submarine beneath the ice.  Ian has given the salon a much larger window than the other designs and two rudders.  The rudders, meant to evoke Goff's embedded diving planes, may seem strange, but a plan of Nordenfelt's first submarine, built in 1885, shows two rudders in a similar arrangement.  I found a sketch of Ian's Nautilus on his web page.  He has since updated both.  Visit his site for the sketch and a detailed plan and then look around a bit to enjoy the examples of his art (opens in a new window).

I have talked about my design elsewhere but here is a little more background and an illustration for comparison. I used a true cylinder with tapered ends for hull, based in part on fitting the very large salon within it. Some illustrations of the cigar ships from the mid-1800s show a more tapered cigar shape. I placed the platform directly on the hull because the text places it 80 centimeters out of the water. This corresponds exactly with Nemo's statement that one tenth of the hull is exposed on the surface.

 

Leo Arnold sent me his plans and a short description of this design.  The most interesting detail is the sideways mounted longboat, facilitating its launch and retrieval.  The wheelhouse and lantern, spaced far apart, have upper flanges that close the deck openings when retracted. The lantern is slightly taller than the wheelhouse, partially addressing the problem of the wheelhouse shadow.  The design positions the triangular spur above the centerline.  The hull cross-section includes somewhat flat sides and bottom, perhaps to improve interior space utilization. 

3D artist Jon A. Bell designed this streamlined Nautilus for a Sega CD adventure game.  Unfortunately Sega discontinued the CD platform before production could be completed.  Eric Quackenbush was the primary designer for the game, but Jon, with Eric's input, designed and built the 3D model.  They were considerably influenced by the Naval Institute Press annotated edition of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (see more about this excellent version on my Twenty Thousand Leagues page).  Although the actual game design never got past the demo stage, Jon completed various proof-of-concept animations showing the exterior of the submarine and the interior rooms.  His design, notable for its odd, fan-shaped propeller, includes two forward lanterns near the pilothouse in addition to the one at the end of the platform.   You can see a rendering and some plans of this Nautilus here.

I found an image of Jérôme Comblat's Nautilus during a periodic web search for Nautilus designs.  Clearly based on the novel, it has similarly shaped pilot house and lantern structures at either end of a subtle deck.  There is a dinghy approximately amidships and a hatch just aft.  The hull has no obvious ram but there is an elaborate structure with a salon window forward of a large trapezoidal dive plane. A gracefully shaped vertical fin encloses the prop and probably incorporates the rudder.  There may also be a small horizontal fin component, perhaps serving as a partial prop guard. The image shows a hint of a keel structure on the forward part of the cylindrical section of the hull.  A large bulge on the lower hull aft might be associated with a diving hatch.  You can see Comblat's original image on his web page here.

~ c. 2000 ~

Anthony Testa's Nautilus uses an exaggerated version of Goff's rakes to distinguish itself with a vicious and organic look.  The hull is spindle-shaped and the wheelhouse and lantern appear retractable.  Anthony has placed the launch at the end of the platform and protected the five-bladed propeller within a cylindrical guard.  I produced the image and 3D model from two 3/4 forward views, so my interpretation is missing some details and probably has some errors.

Nobumitsu Kobayashi's dramatic design has a raised vertical ram, like an axe blade.  The wheelhouse and lantern are at least partially retractable into the cylindrical hull. The rectangular salon windows, which are placed a little far aft, are fitted with a protective grid.  Nobumitsu has added what may be a set of forward-facing windows in the hull, although these may be lights to augment the lantern.  The prop appears to have three blades.  Unfortunately, the renderings of this Nautilus appear to be no longer available on the Internet.  Other 3D art by Nobumitsu Kobayashi can be seen on his own (Japanese) pages.  (The link will open in a new browser window.)  Thanks to Mark Dee who told me about this design.

Michael Bianco based his design on de Neuville and Riou illustrations, with additional inspiration from these pages.  The flattened upper surface of the hull is notable.  Most designs add a raised platform, or leave the deck surface rounded.  Michael uses a five-sided lantern, like Jim Humphries, but turns it around to keep the light from shining directly into the wheelhouse.  Note the window atop the wheelhouse that provides a sternward view when the structure is rotated into the hull for streamlining.
 

Illustrator Didier Graffet's Nautilus is showcased in  the richly illustrated Gründ full French text Vingt Mille Lieus sous les mers, published in 2003.  Although not strictly following the text, his design is reasonably true to Verne while incorporating elements from Goff and many other sources.  Notable features are a partially retractable control room forward of the small wheelhouse, a folding exterior ladder in the aft keel below the dive hatch, a downward looking window at the bottom of the main, spiral stairway, and additional lights fore and aft on the lower hull.  The very large fins are distinctly fishlike.  One of the more interesting details of the design is his overlapping the hull plates top-to-bottom, rather than bow-to-stern as others have done.  The images here are of my model based on the plan and drawings in the book.  Now you can see Didier's plans, other images, and photos of the electrified wood and cardboard model of his Nautilus on his official Mondes & Voyages website.  He also has some very fine prints of  his Nautilus plans available here.

This is Jesper Kurt-Nielsen's original spindle-hulled Nautilus concept.   The deck details reflect the Hetzel edition illustrations, like many of the designs.  The stern features an asymmetric rudder.  His original art included Aronnax standing on the deck in the classic Riou drawing that, according to Walter James Miller in The Annotated 20,000 Leagues, Verne posed for himself. 

Jesper Kurt-Nielsen added ornamentation to his second Nautilus and changed to a symmetrical stern.   You can see his color renditions of both designs including the Aronnax figure on his Danish Virtual Verne web site.   (See Riou’s Aronnax on Zvi Har’El’s Illustrated Jules Verne pages.)
 

Frank Chase has conceived a Nautilus that calls Goff's design to mind but is very different.  Frank began from Verne's text but has taken a few liberties.  The result is a graceful but powerful appearance.  His 3D model, which can be viewed on his web page (also linked from my Nautilus page), has a full interior laid out very much as Verne described.  I find the appointments and machinery somewhat modern, but the detail is incredible and the result impressive.

Frank Chase's web site also features interior views of his second Nautilus.   Although resembling his original design, Frank went back to the text for this version.  The Goff influence is gone.  The deck is clearly Verne but the ram is set high like Ian Williams.  The salon window is rectangular like Ron Miller's.  

Design Wheel, a company that designs film, television, and interior spaces created this Nautilus concept as a study for a 2002 film of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.   To quote their website, "The 'Nautalis' is reborn in this new version of the famous Jules Verne novel".  The concept draws on the classic Harper Goff design but reverses some elements for a very different appearance and includes the movie scene of the Nautilus held by the giant squid by adding a tentacle motif to the hull.  See the Design Wheel concept drawing as well as some interior sketches on the Design Wheel website.

Robert Kelley misses a few details of Verne's description in this version of the Nautilus, but I like the  rough and tough look.   The sinister wheelhouse and light, shown in their retracted positions, remind me of pill box gun emplacements.  Kelley's lethal blade-shaped ram, inspired in part by Ron Miller's design,  might have caused Nemo to say "like a knife through butter" instead of "a needle through sailcloth".  The renderings I’ve seen, soon to be available on Kelley’s web site, give an impression of toughness and violence.  This sub could have easily terrorized 19th century seas. 
 

Sculptor Bruce Bowman has designed a simple, clean looking Nautilus, based on Jules Verne's text.  In his description Bruce acknowledges the only obvious error - five blades on the prop instead of four.  My graphic doesn't do justice to the classic appearance of the spindle hull and almost stiletto-like triangular cross-section, three-bladed ram.  The small wheelhouse has five or six sides with one facing forward.  The lantern is a little taller than the wheelhouse with two lights facing forward.  The deck between the wheelhouse and the lantern is integral with the hull - there is no platform - and protected by a low railing, part of which appears to be a chain that can be lowered to launch the boat, located mid-deck.  The oval salon window is sized to match the interior view of some of the original woodcut illustrations.  The dive planes, located amidships, are short fore and aft but project noticeably to the sides to provide a large control surface.  The rudder, mounted on the hull bottom forward of the prop, is similarly large.  You can see some nice graphics of this Nautilus on the Bowman Arts website.   
 

The Adventure Company game Return to Mysterious Island features a Nautilus surprisingly true to the novel.   The design is clearly inspired by an illustration in the original Hetzel edition with details suggested by other sources.  The image at right, produced from a published screenshot, shows two searchlights imbedded in the deck, matching the Hetzel illustration shown as an inset.  (Close examination of the original drawing shows the lights are imbedded in the superstructure, but no matter.)  The design has two dinghies, one on each side of the deck, a nice improvement on my own original Nautilus.  The pilot house and a pilot house and lantern are similar to several designs in the catalog.  The nicely detailed hull uses overlapping plates just like those of my new Nautilus, except that they are much smaller.  My recreation image of this design at left speculates on parts such as the salon window and dive plane not visible in the published screenshot graphics.  The published interior screenshots show a recurring chambered nautilus design motif similar to the raised emblem on the bow.  Such decoration might extend to the outside portion of the window.
     Additional information and screen shots can be found at this game web site or by a web search of the game title.   You can buy the game at amazon.com but check out some reviews first to know what you are getting.  The submarine does have passages from the deck to the complete salon but unfortunately no other interior rooms to explore.

According to a capsule history provided by John McEwan, his Victorian Science Fiction Submarine Narwal was built by the French in 1889 using information that Aronnax, actually a French secret agent, collected during his sojourn aboard the Nautilus.  It has many of the features described in the novel and improvements similar to other designs featured in the Catalog.  John acknowledges Ian William's Nautilus as an inspiration.  The lantern is mounted atop the wheel house.  In addition to the helmsman's windows, the extended wheelhouse includes a set of portholes on the sides of what might be a full control room.  A launch is located in the center of the deck forward of the main hatch.  There are aft dive planes in a set of horizontal fins and the expected hull-mounted planes planes are moved forward of the large salon windows.  A double rudder is set in the vertical fins very similar to the Williams Nautilus and the triangular cross-section ram is set high.  The four bladed prop is protected by an annular shroud attached to aft fins.  McEwan's Reviresco war gaming company features some other images and a paper card model of the Narwal on its web site.

Jean-Marc Deschamps’ Nautilus includes all the details described in the novel.  The hull is asymmetrically cigar-shaped with a rounded stern and a pointed bow.   The ram has two fins that, combined with the extended keel, would make a triangular cut in the hull of an attacked ship.   The pilothouse and lantern have the same shape and appearance.   You can see photos of Deschamps’ model and a detailed plan on the NemoTechnik web site.

The Nautilus - 1st version - of Hugues Rouleux ("BatNemo") has many influences, including the novel.  The profile is reminiscent of Harper Goff's but there are two side-by-side raker arches, like Ray Harryhausen's Mysterious Island Nautilus.   Only part of the railing is visible in my graphic, but the top of the wheelhouse somewhat resembles a fleet boat submarine conning tower.  There is a rather beak-like triangular ram and an eye-like salon window.  This RC design has four dive planes, two small ones just forward of the salon window and two aft in a set of large horizontal fins.  The deck includes a boat amidships and a large forward-facing lantern at the aft end.  You can see photos of this nicely finished model on BatNemo's website or, for the time being, here.  See his newer in-work Nautilus version below.

Christian Zaber’s Nautilus has a sinister, organic look.  It's not only Victorian era seamen who might mistake this lethal ramming machine for a sea monster.  The design is less true to the novel than most in the catalog.   It has a long boat set in the hull a little aft of amidships.  The hull, composed of several intersecting and cut-off ellipsoids, is not topped with a deck, but there is a small promenade just forward of the wheel house and a larger one aft of the long boat.  Both are reached by hatches.  Instead of a lantern there are a pair of searchlights on the lower forward hull.  The salon window amidships, the raker arch, and the two large wheel house windows are reminiscent of Goff, but there is no real resemblance.  See many images of both the exterior and interior of this Nautilus on Christian's Ultra Mondes web site.

In 2005 the German printing firm Lingoli published a combined children's edition of 80 Tagen um die Welt and 20.000 Meilen unter dem Meer in their Entdecker (Discovery) series, cleverly illustrated by Tony Wolf.  The design has a triangular ram composed of a full-width horizontal plate with a half-height vertical plate placed atop it.  The vertical component transitions to two large raker fins atop the forward hull.  The deck and superstructure are unique.  A large, but not unusual wheel house at the forward end has two canted circular windows.  There is a similarly large lantern hosing at the aft end with four circular windows.  But in the center, the boat is not set into the deck but enclosed in a boat house between these two elements.  Hinged panels are raised like a garage door to launch the boat.  Large circular salon windows are approximately where expected, but Wolf has placed the dive planes at the aft end of horizontal fins that protrude slightly from a fairing running almost the full length of the hull.  Two similar vertical fins extend from the aft hull with the rudder set at the end of the lower one.  The aft hull terminates in a cone with a large, free-standing, four-bladed prop.  The book, available internationally (in German) from booksellers in Germany,  includes a cutaway view of the Nautilus, more or less true to Verne's description.  Verne's characters are all there, but are animals in this children's version.  Thanks again to Jürgen Guerrero Kommritz for bringing this Nautilus to my attention.

This is Philip Heinrich's interesting fishlike Nautilus.  Inspired some by Dave Warren's design, but based largely on calculations from the novel, Philip's Nautilus has the look of some prehistoric fish with overlapping scales.  He admits his unique positioning of the propeller forward of the large, flat tail, while looking very good, might not work.  It calls the original cigar steamer's midships propeller to my mind.  That boat had a frame that held the forward and aft hulls together.  Missing that, Philip's design requires a hollow propeller shaft surrounding a central, non-rotating structural shaft to keep the tail stationary, as well as rudder controls.  It would be complex and difficult engineering, but perhaps not beyond Nemo's genius.  Philip created his Nautilus in Carrara and kindly provided all the images that appear here.  You can see hi-res renderings of this Nautilus on Philip's art page on his web site.
  
Leelan Lampkins’ Nautilus combines features of Greg Sharpe’s first design with Ian Williams’ ram.  He’s added a cutwater forward of the pilothouse and incorporated a tall lantern in a dorsal fin for protection during ramming.  He's moved the salon windows forward in keeping with the internal dimensions of the novel.

William Burningham's Nautilus echoes many of the designs shown here but particularly resembles Jim Humphries' boat.  His design includes rotating davits that operate like those I've planned for my new Nautilus and animated on my dinghy page, with the dinghy stored inverted, but flipped during launch.  These look very much like those on the Return to Mysterious Island Nautilus but those are not positioned to operate the same way.  Burningham markets 3D models under his KuroKuma professional name.  See more of this Poser-ready 3D model at DAZ.  (The Poser model includes a texture-mapped OBJ file that can be imported into many other 3D modeling programs.) (My Carrara animation was made after importing the Poser model with TransPoser.)

Greg deSantis started with the idea of recreating Nemo’s Nautilus but decided he didn't want to be limited by the novel, opting for the freedom to create his own ultimate Nautilus.  The result, an imposing Victorian submarine, includes large, ornate salon windows, a deck-mounted launch, and an elevated cable-braced spar.  The two-sided pilot house with center lantern is unique, but an interesting frog-head extension of Goff's big windows.   The design owes more to Goff as well, with its flat-plate, polygonal cross-sectioned hull, fish-like tail and horizontal hull extensions, but in the end it is all Greg's.   Perhaps most interesting is the attention to detail he's put into the model.  It looks as good close up as from a distance.  See a few more images of Greg's "Improbable" Nautilus at his Museum of the Improbable website.  Except for the standard side view, which Greg provided, the images were shaded and rendered in Carrara.

Lee Krystek built this Nautilus for an on-line graphic novel version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. The design is unique, with a deck that runs nearly the full length of the hull and a cigar shaped hull with a truncated stern.  A cruciform vertical and horizontal fin structure is attached to the stern and the long spar appears to have a diamond cross-section for most of its length.  The two diving planes are mounted somewhat forward forward of the hull center.   There are three windows on each side of the hull although only one appears to be in the salon.  (Actually, the salon apparently combines the salon, library, and dining room.)  The retractable wheelhouse with a searchlight lantern mounted on either side and a large hatch amidships are the only noticeable features on the deck.  The boat is stored in a deck compartment forward of the wheelhouse, and doesn't appear to be lauchable underwater.  The blunt end of the hull combined with the fin structure that encloses the prop neatly protects it during a ram attack.  You can see more of this Nautilus in the 20,000 Leagues graphic novel (made using figures from an earlier version of Poser) on Lee's "Museum of Unnatural History" web site.

Jiri Chytil sent me images of his Nautilus.  He has been very faithful to the text.  His design features guards in front of the dive planes, rather like the Hunley, to protect them during a ram attack.    The salon windows have external covers, again for protection and his ram is the most massive of those pictured here.  The boat is designed as a weapon.  Jiri didn't include a description, but the dinghy appears to be mounted to the side similar to my original design and probably for the same reason.

Didier Jaffrédo sent me a copy of the April 2005 issue of the French boat modeling magazine MRB that features André Laisney's article "Le vrai Nautilus de Jules Verne".  The two-part article, inspired by Jean Gagneux's earlier work, includes a comprehensive analysis of the text of 20,000 Leagues not unlike that on these pages and detailed illustrations of a powered model built by the author.  It includes a full plan (including interior) that I used to create the 3D model for the images shown here.  Laisney began with Gagneux's design and added salon window covers, diving plane guards, and a longer keel.  He modified the ram and the rudder, and used a slightly elevated wood deck to account for the curvature of the hull.  Other small differences are apparent on examination, but the Gagneux pedigree is clear.

Didier also sent me a page from the February/March 2005 issue of Bateau modèle showing this Nautilus.   M. Claude Martinet built his model based on Michel Métivier's "Monographie du Nautilus".   The design used the the shape of the 1863 French submarine Le Plongeur, often cited as an inspiration the Nautilus, for the hull.  Martinet added the features described by Verne in the novel, including the salon window, wheelhouse, lantern, and deck.  Le Plongeur had a torpedo spar but this Nautilus has a ram that is integral to the somewhat triangular bow.  I have unfortunately not seen Métivier's monograph, but the magazine article indicates the large number of port holes in this design are true to it.  Read about Le Plongeur and see some images for comparison on Wikipedia.org.

Starting with the hull of a Japanese model and adding bits and pieces of designs found on this page, Jim Smith  created a simple, but recognizable Nautilus consistent with a story he conceived.  Jim features his Nautilus in the diorama pictured here.  He provided this narrative to explain it:  "On June 25, 1961 while on a routine test dive at 900 feet near an exploded volcano in the Pacific, the USS Nautilus finds what the crew thought was something that was only from the pages of a book. Chills went up their spines, yet there she lay, still intact, and stranger still, fully operational: Captain Nemo's Nautilus!" 

Every  once in while a strikingly different Nautilus appears.   Film Production Designer Hugh Marchant has created such a design.  Jules Verne described a nearly featureless vessel that appeared suddenly, attacked, and disappeared as quickly.  Its monstrosity was in the impression it left behind.  So different from ships of the time, it could only have been a sea monster.  Most of the designs on this page are simple interpretations of the novel's text, imaginative elaborations on Victorian Age motifs, variations on a sea creature of great size, or some combination of these.  Although there are hints of all these in Marchant's Nautilus, it is unique.  To me this design is skeletal, sinister, a very different kind of monster

Greg Rico sent me a second version of his Nautilus.   Although similar to his first this one has cleaner lines - a little less steam punk and, I think, a little more art deco.  The attack deck is much less pronounced and the deck housings have more of what I'll call the Jim Humphries form.  The ram is unchanged from Greg's first but the design of the forward hull, with fewer rakers, is much less brutal.  This Nautilus is less a warship and more a luxury yacht.

This Nautilus appeared on the public blog of La Legion Fantastique, a theater group whose shows bring the worlds of Jules Verne to life.  You can read the posting and see photos of the Nautilus model o the No.7 Saville Road blog.  I created my image from those photos so it is somewhat distorted.  The submarine has a lethal-looking ram, backed up by four large fins with rakers, slightly reminiscent of the Harper Goff Nautilus.  There is no doubt that this Nautilus is a warship.  The only other element that might be traced to Goff is the long wheel house with its goggle-eye windows.  There is a rectangular salon window with what may be a smaller circular window just forward and what appears to be a hull-mounted light just aft.  There is no deck-mounted lantern and no obvious boat.  The tale has a ventral fin and two horizontal fins and an elaborate fin-mounted rudder.  Like the bow fins, the upper part of the tail is fitted with rakers.

Phil Benson based his design on late 19^th century submarines in addition to the text from the novel.  He began with an approximately square cross-section hull that tapers to rounded ends.  Protrusions on each side give it an almost conventional submarine appearance.  Phil placed the lantern on the hull forward of the deck and mounted four additional lamps below the centerline on each side of the hull for underwater illumination.  He's placed a second deck house aft, defining a narrow promenade deck between the houses.  The boat is recessed in the deck extension aft of the second house.  Covered by panels, it is launched and retrieved on extendable rails.  The tall structure near the middle of the deck is a telescoping air vent.  The ram, inspired by the narwhale's horn, is mounted just a bit above the centerline.  Phil supplied the photo of his small prototype model at right.  He's planning a larger scale version. 

William Wardrop also drew his inspiration from early submarines as well as Verne's text.  Except for the distinctive Confederate Pioneer hull shape, most everything in this design traces to Aronnax's description and other information in the novel, down to the undersea excursion hatch and ladder in the lower aft hull.  See a photo of William's Nautilus model and take a look at some of his other creations on his Steam Noir web site.  His work, modeled in cardboard and the result of years of research, presents innovative and eccentric vehicles of the 18^th, 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Alan Moore's graphic novel, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, features a giant, double-hulled Nautilus.  This original concept, with one hull in the form of a giant squid attached to a second whale-shaped hull, has little to do with Verne, but the sequel, The Black Dossier, includes a small image of the first Nautilus with illustrator Kevin O'Neill's cut-away drawing of the second.  O'Neill's spindle-hulled design has a massive ram backed up by large raker fins.  It appears he has moved the lantern just forward of the wheelhouse and placed a large porthole in the lower aft hull, but most everything else matches the description in the novel.

Didier Jaffrédo has completed his N. ANNULATUS Radio-Controlled submarine.  As described on his web site, in addition to carefully reading the text of novel, Didier began with Ian Williams' design and modified it some per John McEwan’s Victorian Science Fiction Submarine Narwal and other sources.  Jaffrédo's design differs from Williams' in a number of particulars.  He re-envisioned the ram to resemble the Whitemargin Unicorn Fish (naso annulatus) "nose" and named his submarine accordingly.  To improve control, he moved the dive planes far forward and added a second set aft within the horizontal fins, similar to the rudders in the vertical fins.  He replaced the single propeller with two smaller shrouded props at the aft end of the fins to improve stability. The deck details differ, especially with the addition of two large ventilators to facilitate Nemo's replenishment of air when on the surface.  Lastly, Didier has eliminated the salon windows.  He justifies the changes with speculation that Nemo continued to improve the Nautilus in the years after the events of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.  See much more about the ANNULATUS at Didier's Reve de Sous-Marin site.  Click the small button labeled ANNULATUS on the upper left.  The pages are in French but with many pictures most things are readily understandable.  Click around a little because the links to some sub-pages, such as the details of construction (including many photos), are not obvious.

Eric Gasper took inspiration from Confederate ironclad rams, especially the Virginia, in designing his Nautilus.  The upper part of the hull is configured for attack, with a unique pike-ram, nearly as long as the hull, mounted above the deck on tall blades.  In an attack with the deck awash, only the pike and the dorsal blade aft would be visible on the surface.  The large propeller is protected by a long cylindrical shroud and the rudder includes a lock to prevent damage from attack debris.  There is a full bridge forward beneath the conical observation wheelhouse, the top of which would just clear the surface when attacking.  The lower part of this Nautilus is configured for undersea exploration and treasure hunting, the source of Nemo's wealth.  There is a large oval window with a cluster of smaller observation ports amidships.  Eight hull-mounted rectangular searchlights illuminate the sea below the boat.  Eric has included a racing-sailboat-like keel ballast tank extension to the hull.  This structure protects the rest of the lower hull when the Nautilus rests on the bottom for seafloor excursions.  The keel mount provides an observation deck with portholes all around that look out on the sea bottom.

Meinert Hansen has updated his original design (seen above).  This version, although very much like the first, has a few obvious differences.  The old semi-spherical wheelhouse and its protective arch set forward has been replaced by a spire-topped cylindrical structure near the aft end of the deck.  The deck itself is longer, starting further forward, and more obvious than before.  Although especially from some vantage points, the design is still very organic and even shark-like, I think it has a nice retro-mechanical look, not unlike something from a space opera serial in the 1930s and 40s.  See Meinert's images of this Nautilus on Utamo's Blog.

Illustrator and designer David Herfel, walking the line between Jules Verne's text and his own artistic vision, has produced this wonderfully detailed Nautilus.  The spindle-shaped hull flares slightly on the sides to smoothly accommodate the amidships dive planes and horizontal tail fins, which together with the vertical fins, support a shroud to protect the large, five-bladed propeller.  The narrow but deep keel is similarly faired to the hull.  A ladder on the keel provides access to the airlock hatch on the lower hull, aft.  A streamlined superstructure permits a raised deck so that no part of the hull is visible during surface running.  A boat, inspired by Robert Fulton's Nautilus is mounted in the deck just aft of midships.  The submarine is fitted with anchors, one forward, port side and one aft and starboard.  In addition to the lantern housing that mimics the wheelhouse at the other end of the deck, David's design includes lights around the salon windows and the diver hatch, four lights each around the hull at the bow and stern, and a small lantern on the superstructure just forward of the deck.  This lantern and the two housings withdraw into the deck for attack,  panels close over the salon windows, and the classically positioned ram is extended forward.  The bow is fitted with serrated rakers for lethality. David has dated his drawing 2000, but I've placed it here because he has constantly tweaked it over the years and this represents today's design.

The clean lines of Elías Enmanuel Castillo Rivera's spindle-hulled Nautilus make me think of it as a more Jules Verne-like "Sword of the Sea" than that in the Extraordinary Gentlemen film.  His raised, dagger-like ram extends to fairing running to the forward end of the deck.  A narrow vertical fin extends the length of the hull aft of the deck.  The keel begins just aft of the salon window and extends into a similar lower fin.  The vertical fins culminate in a large rudder aft of the prop.  These planes make the Nautilus resemble a prehistoric marine reptile from a top view.  There are four large diving planes centered amidships, two just aft of the salon window and two a corresponding distance aft of mid-hull. The small deck is very much as Verne described it with a low wheelhouse forward, a boat amidships and a lantern aft.  The lantern is mounted on a high tower as the only exception to the text.  Both deck structures look like they can be withdrawn into the hull for a streamlined attack.  With the tall ventral fin Elías has placed just aft of the deck his Nautilus the appearance of a monstrous killer whale when running rigged for attack. 

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Updated 13 May 09