A small, had-propelled German submarine, the Brandtaucher, sank in 1851in sixty feet of water, with her captain, Wilhelm Bauer, and two crew members aboard. Her hull immediately began to collapse under the pressure of the sea. Captain Bauer, who had built the tiny craft, knew that if he could keep his two companions from panicking while allowing the water to rise steadily inside her, the interior and exterior pressure would equalize and they would be able to open the hatch and get out. They did. As Bauer wrote later, "We came to the surface like to bubbles in a glass of champagne. " The world made little note of this first escape from a sunken submarine.