Connecticut divers made an incredible discovery over the weekend -- a submarine was found at the bottom of Long Island Sound.
A Coventry man spearheaded the effort, discovering a piece of history off the coast of Old Saybrook.
"It's been hiding in plain sight all these years," said Shoreline Diving Services Vice President Richard Simon.
Simon grew up hearing stories about The Defender from ship captains and explorers in the state.
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"My father was a commercial diver, so I've grown up knowing about diving, being involved in diving and just loving shipwrecks and exploration," Simon said.
The Defender is an experimental submarine that was made in 1907. The submarine's inventor was inspired by the pages of "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," a classic Jules Verne novel.
"The Defender had wheels, it could drive on the bottom. It had a door you could release divers from," Simon said.
It sank more than 75 years ago.
Simon, who is a commercial diver from Coventry, assembled a team and set out to find the elusive submarine. After a failed dive Friday, they tried again Sunday.
"We throw a grappling hook overboard off our research vessel, try to hook into the side of it, go down that hook, and hopefully there’s a submarine," Simon said.
He oversaw operations on the deck that day while two team members did the dive. Once the divers resurfaced, it was a moment of pure joy.
"Very exciting, a lot of yelling, screaming and excitement, you know, it's been years in the making of research to get to this point," Simon said.
Simon and his team plan to keep diving and documenting The Defender.
"We've barely scratched the surface, so we'll just dive, dive, dive. We have all summer, hopefully weather conditions are good and we can keep documenting it and sharing it with everyone," Simon said.
He and his team are working to get the submarine protected. Simon said he would love to see The Defender get raised someday and put into a museum so that everyone can enjoy it.
