English: The lanyard-mounted torpedo designed by
en:William B. Cushing that sunk
CSS Albemarle. A description of the pieces follows, paraphrased from p. 658 of the PDF:
Fig 1:
A: Long spar
B: Bracket attaching the spar to the boat
e: Halliard for raising and lowering the spar
C: Stanchion for the halliard
D: Windlass for the halliard
g: Pin holding the shell in place
h and i: Lug and inclined plane holding the pin
j: Lanyard pulled to remove the pin
a: Lugs attached to the lanyard so that pulling the lanyard would push the shell out
l: A smaller lanyard leading to the pin, so that the shell would be pushed out first, and then the pin would be pulled out. Spliced to j
Fig 2:
X: Air chamber
Z: Powder chamber. The arrangement of these meant the shell would float vertically, point down.
In the shaft is a grape-shot, held in place by:
p: A pin
s: A lanyard attached to the pin, the "trigger-line"
When s was pulled, the pin would come out, the shot would fall on a "nipple", and the torpedo would detonate.
The spar was held facing the stern of the boat when not in use. When in use, the shell was added, the spar was swung around, and lanyard
e was used to set the spar at the right depth. Then lanyard
j was pulled, pin
g released, and the shell floated free. Finally
s was pulled, and the torpedo detonated.