A homemade replica of a Revolutionary War submarine triggered a wild terror scare in New York Harbor yesterday after it drifted too close to the majestic Queen Mary 2.
The egg-shaped wooden sub - built by a Brooklyn artist and launched by a man who claims he's a descendant of the Revolutionary War hero who designed the original - was hauled out of the water.
The pilot and his two pals were questioned by cops and Coast Guard officers and given a raft of summonses.
"I think I'll take a break from the submarine business for awhile," Brooklyn artist Duke Riley, 35, said after he was released from custody. "I think I'll let it collect barnacles."
Riley built the plywood contraption in a friend's wood shop with the idea that he would maneuver it as close as he could get to the QM2 and take some photos.
He thought he'd get a reaction - but the helicopters, police boats and machine-gun-toting cops were more than he bargained for.
"All hell broke loose," said Danilo Parra, 22, who filmed Riley as the submarine bobbed within the luxury liner's 200-foot security zone, towed by two of Riley's friends in a rubber boat.
"He made it almost there. He was about 25 feet away from it. Then - police, Coast Guard, everybody was there. There were helicopters. One of the officers held a machine gun. It was very intense," Parra said.
A self-proclaimed artist patriot, Riley told friends he expected to get busted.
But first he had hoped to recreate the last time a wooden submarine trolled New York waters - in 1776, when the submarine snuck under a British flagship that commanded access to the Hudson River, hoping to blow it up.
"I guess it was kind of a metaphor," Riley said of the Queen Mary 2. "It is the most iconic cruise ship; the largest in the world."
After weighting the craft with lead and sandbags, Riley climbed in and launched the sub into Buttermilk Channel.
Two Rhode Island buddies, Michael Kushing, 23, and Jesse Bushnell, 35, towed the submarine behind a 10-foot inflatable raft.
Bushnell was a good choice for co-pilot, police said, because he claimed to be a relative of Revolutionary War tinkerer David Bushnell, the original designer of the submarine known as the Turtle.
As the trio drifted near the docked QM2, a member of the NYPD Intelligence Division on the deck of the ship spotted the raft and the bobbing sub next to it.
Each time the QM2 comes into port, NYPD officers board the ship and ride it to the dock, accompanied by harbor and aviation units.
As the submarine entered the QM2's security zone, those security units swung into action.
"A helicopter hovered right over the sub. The guy inside opened the hatch and looked up and realized he was caught," a dock employee said.
Parra said the machine-gun-toting cops wanted details about the submarine.
"They must have thought it was packed with explosives," Parra said.
Riley and his pals were questioned for several hours and released after getting summonses from the NYPD and the Coast Guard for reckless operation, reckless towing, violating a safety zone and creating a hazardous condition.
"We can best summarize today's incident as marine mischief," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Riley, who graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the Rhode Island School of Design, started building the sub in March.
He took it on a practice sail about a week ago and then fine-tuned it. The entire project has been chronicled on Riley's Web site as "Adventures with an Egg."
"I know I've scared some people and I know I wasted a lot of people's time today, but also a lot of people were amused by it," said Riley, who has to appear in court Aug. 28. "I don't know if I regret it. I'm sure when I know how the judge reacts, I'll have a better idea."
