[PSUBS-MAILIST] Thought-experiment

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

Simon Lake's Argonaut Junior seems a fairly simple boat.  I've been 
wondering how to duplicate it.  Duplicate in terms of fuction, that is.

The original boat was two layers of pine planking separated by a sheet
of canvas.  Any modern copy would be three layers of 3/4-inch plywood,
fiberglassed. 

In the water, it appears to have had no propulsion.  The wheels 
weren't paddle wheels, and no one has yet found a reference from
Simon Lake himself to anything other than "paddling."   So I presume
that the two guys rolled the thing into the water and then towed 
it, behind their rowboat or canoe, to the dive location.

Once there, they dropped to the bottom and drove around.  Driving
on the bottom was powered by humans.  If I had to do this, I'd find
a way to use electric motors.

There was a hatch for divers, on the boat.  I'm not sure where that
was (forward or midships; opening to the side or on the centerline).
Just looking at the helmet used suggest the diver did not dare tilt
his head more than a few degrees.  To exit out of the bottom of the
boat means that the diver would have to lay down on the bottom.  (Of
course, he might have gotten out and then put the helmet on ...)

Argonaut Junior was really a mobile habitat, it appears.  It must have
been a great toy for the two guys who operated it.

Things I have not yet figured out just yet include the interior 
arrangements, the power train and ballasting.  I'll work on it as
time permits.

What I'd really like to know is how two men managed to crank the
thing over the soft bottom I see in rivers near me.  Simon Lake 
must have had a rock bottom on the river he was in.  It was seven
tons of waterlogged wood, and it could not have been easy to 
handle, even were it trimmed to just less than negative.

A project, for comment.  My Other Half says Argonaut Junior would
make a nice garden wagon ... but she also wants a boat to use as a
planter.


Mike