French submarine Farfadet ( Q7 ) Farfadet " ( Q7 ) was the lead ship of her class of submarine for the French Navy . She was built at the Arsenal de Rochefort in Rochfort and launched on 17 May 1901 . She accidentally sank on 5 July 1905 with the loss of all 14 men aboard . She was later refloated and recommissioned the Follet " ( Q7 ) . She was stricken in November 1913 . Background . " Farfadet " was a Morse - type French submarine launched with the " Lutin " in 1901 . It is remembered chiefly for the accident of 6 July 1905 , off the coast of Tunisia , which killed all 14 of its crew . The details of the catastrophe , once released by the press , horrified France and drew national attention to the dangers of submarines , which the French Ministry of Marine was at that time investing a great deal of money in . After the Farfadet accident and the recent British HMS A8 submarine disaster ( June 1905 ) , sailors began to refer to submarines as " iron tombs " , and the vessel ' s fate reflects that of the Russian craft Kursk almost 100 years later . The year after the " Farfadet " disaster , the completion of HMS Dreadnought shifted the focus of European navies , and thenceforth arguably only the German navy gave submarines and submersibles any priority . Name . Farfadet means " merry spirit " and is a type of sprite or goblin in French folktale . The goblin is present in the folklore of the south of France , the Vendée and Poitou . French naval buildup . In the early 1900s the French Navy made a concerted effort to build up its submarine fleet . The Times of London on April 5 , 1904 notes that " 26 submersibles of various types " were being developed by its nearest neighbour , with a total of 47 on the drawing board . At this time the vessels were listed as : Submarines : " Morse , Français , Algeríen , Naïade , Protée , Lynx , Ludion , Gnôme , Lutin , Loutre , Castor , Gustave Zédé , Gymnote , Perle , Esturgeon , Bonité , Thon , Sontfleur , Dorade , Farfadet , Korrigan " . Submersibles : " Narval , Siréne , Triton , Silure , Espadon " Accident , as reported in " The Times " . " The Times " of July 7 , 1905 reports that , on a routine cruise after leaving the port of Sidi Abdullah in French Tunisia , the " Farfadet " , heading for its home port of Bizerte in Tunisia , attempted to dive with a " skylight " ( hatch ) improperly shut . The guard officer tried to force it closed and then , mistakenly , tried to open it and slam it shut again . The submarine had by this point submerged ; the force of the water forced the hatch down in a skewed position from which it would not move . As the submarine dived the hatch was forced from its place entirely and the guard captain blown from his position by the force of the water . Four sailors in the bow were drowned , and the weight of water in the flooded forward section caused the " Farfadet " to dip and dive straight down , where it became embedded in the mud at the bottom of the harbour . Alternate version . Submarine pioneer John P . Holland wrote in " How To Fly Like a Bird " ( 1906 ) that the " Farfadet " had moved in such a way as to upset her ballast tank , which in turn submerged an open hatch . A similar fate was suffered by the British A8 , which had spun onto its side while trying to avoid a trawler , dipping its conning tower underwater and so flooding itself , " excepting that in [ the " Farfadet " ' s ] case there occurred a change of speed or inclination that caused the water in her partially filled tank to move to her forward end , thus causing the common centre of gravity of the boat , and the water in its tanks , to move far enough forward to force the forward part of the boat under water . This unexpected manoeuvre , combined with her speed , forced the top of her turret under and she took enough water on board to send her to the bottom . " Attempted rescue and salvage . " The Times " of July 7 , 1905 records that at 9am on July 7 , divers reached the " Farfadet " and found that the crew were responding to knocks . Four hawser ( steel ) cables were wrapped around the submarine in preparation for the arrival of a 20 - ton pontoon and crane , belonging to the Hersen Company . At 3 . 20pm the vessel was raised , its aft portion breaking the water so that airlocks could be opened and the air inside renewed for the surviving crew . Attempts were then made to ground the submarine in shallow water , but at 12 . 45 the next morning the crane broke , sending the submarine back to the bottom of the harbour . Further efforts to recover it , involving the French steamer " Audax " , were in vain . On July 15 , 1905 , the Farfadet was raised using a floating dock , and towed to the harbour of Sidi Abdallah . That night work began on removing the bodies . The four in the forward compartment had died instantly , the eight aft when the crane had broken . It was found that the sailors had attempted to plug the airholes with their tunics . Two more bodies were found amidships . It was found that the sulfuric acid of the engine ' s accumulators ( batteries ) had combined with the seawater to create hydrochloric acid , which had eaten away the instruments and bodies and made work on retrieval impossible until ventilators had been fitted to the aft of the vessel . The last of the crew had died after being trapped for 32 hours . Eight of the 14 crew were from Brittany .