[PSUBS-MAILIST] The replica Turtle

["Michael B. Holt" <mholt@richmond.edu>]

This is a message from someone on the boatdesign list.
He knows the Joe Leary, who built the replica.  Read,
enjoy and, perhaps, like me, consider another replica.
First, we refer to the builder and then to the WB issue
in which I read about the boat.

The boatdesign list is an egroup.com list.  Look for it
at the egroups.com site.

 
	
 
 Cheers,
 
 Mike
 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 > > Incidently, I know Joe Leary
 
 > Ah!  I have WoodenBoat 21,
 > Why was it a bad boat?
 
 First, Joe is a video producer by trade and news hound by nature, and
 had compiled all the info known about the Turtle, even paying ruinous
 rates to copy the original Bushnell information that I believe is at
 Yale. I believe he hopes to publish the definitive work on the Turtle
 eventually. His boat, which he refers to as his daughter, is on
 display at a museum in Essex, CT.
 
 Second, it is a awful boat, barely competent at anything that a boat
 is supposed to do, including floating, movement, and not drowning its
 operator. There is essentially no depth control, limited air. The
 propellor is of marginaly effectiveness and operates too close to the
 barrel-shaped (barrel standing on end, that is) hull. I remember Joe
 saying that the operator can barely see where he is going at best and
 the condensation makes it almost impossible almost immediately.
 
 Joe, who is a sort of science buff but not a scientist, and his
 partner, who is an actual boatbuilder, got some help from engineers
 at Electric Boat in Groton. Sans that help, they didn't really have a
 proper grasp of Archimedes principle.
 
 After the trials described in WoodenBoat, there was no interest by
 anyone in taking it 'to sea' again. Joe is not actually sure what his
 trajectory was but it probably involved uncontrolled depth excursions
 down 40', bouncing off the bottom, rising to the surface, & repeat.
 
 Unexpectedly, I came across a picture of the Turtle in the Bermuda
 Marine Museum in June. Go here
 
 http://members.xoom.com/vandep/bc_kw.html
 
 and click on Turtle, and if the free ISP (and slow) likes you, you
 may get to see. (picture takes a while to catch up with the frame)



-