The Story of the Black Submarine

The journey of the icon of the Science and Technology Museum

 

Museum of Science and Technique (Leonardo’s Machines), Milano – Thursday, June 9^th

Enrico Toti at the Museum of Science and Technology in Milan today

The big and black submarine at the museum of Science and Technology, called the Enrico Toti, was constructed at the height of the Cold War in 1967 with a mission to track Russian nuclear-propelled submarines. It was disarmed and retired in the 1990s and after years of discussion, the final decision was to relocate it to the museum of Science and Technology in Milan. The entire journey of this massive moving trip was 92 km long, lasting 11 days.

The trip began from Cremona River Port in northern Italy and was towed through the water to the closest coast to Milan. This was the easy part of the long journey…

One of the many massive drawbacks to this mission was the weight of the submarine itself which was 405 tonnes. Secondly, the size of the submarine is 46.2m long x 4.75m wide x 4.3m high and the streets of Milan are extremely narrow. So the sub was pulled up onto a custom-made tow truck and was driven all the way to the museum. The corners were the hardest – in fact, it was so difficult that there were a few buildings that were damaged because there was just no other way for the sub to turn corners. And speaking of damages, an entire brick wall had to be torn down in order to make way for the sub and have it placed in the location of where it is today.

Submarine Toti in the streets of Milan surrounded by viewers and bystanders
 www.fagioli.com/multimedia/jobsheet/toti.pdf

This even was extremely commercialized and was seen on every media possible and thousands of bystanders witnessed this event. For more information click on the links below – one of which is a video of the actual event and the other a short pdf file about the event in the perspective of the company who participated in the towing of Enrico Toti.

http://www.fagioli.com/multimedia/jobsheet/toti.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaVHJBTejM

Shannon, Victoria, Calvin