The 150-year-old submarine is thought to be one of only two of its vintage still in existence. "In the history of submarines it's quite amazing and would certainly be the only one ever built in New Zealand," museum curator Dawn Coburn said.Another way of putting it could be to say that the Platypus might be the second-oldest submarine in the world. There's a Confederate submarine, the H.L. Hunley, which sank in Charleston harbour in 1864 along with its target, the US Navy steam sloop USS Housatonic, after a torpedo-ramming run. The Hunley was salvaged in 2000 and currently awaits refurbishment in South Carolina. The Platypus is a mere 10 years younger.
- Stuff, 3 February 2019
The ODT reported at length on the Platypus' early testing in Otago Harbour in the summer of 1873:
A few venturous individuals were launched with the craft, and loudly their cheers rang out when she took the water fairly and did not turn turtle, but on the contrary, floated as buoyantly and as upright as a dish. The assemblage on shore also cheered, and so did the crew of the Peninsula, which steamer had been engaged to tow the Platypus to Stuart street jetty, where it is to be finished off, and afterwards submitted to its first trial of submergence.
- Otago Daily Times, 24 December 1873
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