[PSUBS-MAILIST] Re: Thought-experiment

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

MerlinSub@t-online.de wrote:
> 
> Hi Mike..
> 
> "Michael B. Holt" schrieb:
> >
> > 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.
> 
> It my private opinon but :
> If you build a replica it should be so much original as possible -
> if you do not want to build a replica - use a modern design..

You are right, normally.  What I have in mind is a boat that would
look like the original, but be built to modern standards.

> > 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.
> 
> On the picture I have here it looks that the one or both big bow
> wood wheels were driven by a bike-chain. The chain was outside the
> vessel
> and the chain axis was very high and more or less in the middle of the
> hull short
> behind something looks like a porthole. So I think it was handdriven.

What picture do you have?  Can you scan it?  I have about ten photos,
some of hte old and some of replicas.  There's a static model, in the
British Submarine Museum, with an interior.  (The museum has not 
replied to my query about how they decided what was inside.)

Simon Lake's books report that he cranked it.  His arms (and the
arms of his cousin, Bart Champion) were the power supply.  There 
is some question that there were two chains, but it seems more 
reasonable to assume two chains than one.  
 
> It was a trike and the stern wheel could be turned - was much smaller
> than the other and below the bottom of the boat.

Do you have any documentation concerning the stern wheel?  I'd like 
to know how it was steered: was there a tiller or was there a 
chain to a steering wheel?

> In my description the hatch was at the bottom and on the picture it looks
> like that it was short behind the forward weels. There is a description
> that the crew can have a view to the seabottom and also grab something
> - there is no description that they can leave the boat.. 

What are you reading?  

In what I have read so far, there is talk about divers but no
detailed comment on diving.  So I've been wondering what really
happened: was there a diver, or was the hatch in the bottom the
access to the outside?

Simon wrote that he could simultaneously crank the boat and walk 
in the mud of the bottom.

> on the other side
> there is a short description of a divers suit. On the picture with two
> mans 
> on the boat - one half in the top hatch one near the stern short behind
> the boat - it looks like that the distanve between the seabottom and the
> boat bottom was about 2 feet.

My guess, based on the height of the men in the photos, is that the
sheels were about 3 feet in diameter.  That would place the sheer 
at about 6 feet, 6 inches.  The hull was said to be "five feet 
high" -- but unless all the photos include midgets with mustaches,
the hull on its wheels was higher than that. 

> But maybe the author missunderstand the picture and the turned small
> wheel was in real the bow area - in this area over this wheel are visible
> some (3) holes looks like portholes. I think good old Simon would prefer
> portholes in the bow area - not in the stern ..

Jeff Lake, Simon's descendant (great-grandson?), reports that the
big wheels were at the front.  Jeff and I have discussed this.  I 
have doubts because it is more natural to have everyone at the bow
when taking photos, and everyoone is standing at or facing the end 
with the little wheel.

My first thought was that the windows would be in front.  There
might be windows in the other transom; that's where Jeff thinks
the diver hatch was located (in the bottom, outboard of the big
wheels).

> There is one thing I do not understand on the picture: There is a rope
> goes from the middle of the hull to the end of the vessel were the big
> wheels are. Any idear what it could be ?

I've been looking at that.  I think it's a buoy.  Note that it
seems to have a circular plate around the end of the line midships;
that might have been a reel of line.  It is possible that it could 
be a buoy that could be attached to items they wished to lift from 
a larger boat.
 
> > Argonaut Junior was really a mobile habitat, it appears.  It must have
> > been a great toy for the two guys who operated it.
> 
> It was maybe very - very slow..

Those were slow days.  

> > 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.
> 
> I have seen here a one man submarine from the 60ies made from GRP
> and instead the dome - a flowers box in .. It was in a garden..

I once saw a photo of an automobile with a lemon tree growing out
of the roof.  

Thanks, Carsten.


Mike