The capability of this arrangement of hydroplanes and horizontal rudders to control the depth of submergence was questioned and doubted for many years. As late as 1902, nearly ten years after I first submitted this method of control to the United States Navy Department, Naval Constructor L. Y. Spear, U. S. N., testifying before the Committee of Naval Affairs, House of Representatives, in reference to the "Lake even-keel boat" and my use of hydroplanes, said, "As an expert I do not think he will make his hydroplanes work"; and strongly contended that submergence by inclining the vessel itself was the proper method.
Several years later, in 1908, in Paris, I met Captain Lauboeuf, the celebrated French naval constructor, who has perhaps done more toward perfecting the French submarines than any other designer, and he informed me that after the French Government had its sad experience in the loss of the _Lutine_ and _Farfadet_ with their crews, it had changed all their diving boats into even-keel boats and was now using substantially my method of even-keel submergence with hydroplane control. He also informed me that it had, at that time, thirty-five new boats under construction to operate on the even-keel principle, eighteen of which were of five hundred and fifty tons displacement. Captain Lauboeuf was kind enough to compliment me as having been the first to introduce this method of submerged control.
Commander Murray F. Sueter, Royal British Navy, in his most complete work on "The Evolution of the Submarine Boat, Mine and Torpedo, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Time," published in 1907, said:
"After scrutinizing all the information available, I am certain that several features of the 'Lake' design will be embodied by most nations in the construction of future boats, the chief of which, perhaps, are 'the even-keel method of submergence' in preference to the 'dynamical dive' of the Holland boats; also the provision of a safety keel and diving compartment. This latter forms a ready means of communicating with the surface should the boat, through some small mishap, find herself on the bottom and unable to rise."
Sir Trevor Dawson, formerly (R. N.) manager of "Vickers," in discussing submarine boats before the Institution of Naval Architects in 1907, said: