[PSUBS-MAILIST] Subsafe

[SeaLordOne@aol.com]

Teammates,

For those who are interested, I will continue my riff on my vision for Psubs.  I indicated I had three goals vis-a-vis Psubs: give what I can, get what I can, and build the community.  To me it is goal #3 that makes Psubs a little different.  We (I?) have a broad definition of "the community" and we spend resources to build it.

I can imagine an "ideal" community where everyone who is a member is someone who has successfully built a Psub.  Unfortunately (in my view), that would be a relatively small community.  My vision of Psubs is that it includes anyone interested in Psubs.  The folks who have actually done it are of course the most valued members of the community, but they represent only a small sub-set of the community.  To me Psubbers include the Subbers, the web-meisters, the scuba divers, the marine biologists, the librarians, the inventors, the military types, the poets and the dreamers.  If you are interested, you are a Psubber.  I doubt that more than 10% of Psubbers (what I would call Psubbers) will ever actually build their boat.  But to me they are still Psubbers.  They may not be Subbers, but they can be Psubbers.  That is my vision.

Here is my analogy.  Thomas Edison was a great American inventor.  When asked which was his most important invention, he said it was the laboratory.  It was an invention that gave birth to other inventions, and invention factory, if you will.  Not only are we helping a hand full of Psubbers fulfill their dream, we are building a readily available (world-wide) toolkit for all future Psubbers.  That is why, unlike some others, I support the idea of Psubs publications.  The backyard submarine builders of the last 50 years left behind a legacy of wonderful boats, but very little literature targeted specifically to allowing others to follow in their footsteps.  I have lots of books ABOUT submarines, and some good books of specifications and formulas, but not a single book that tells me how to go about designing, constructing, operating and maintaining a small submarine.  Have I missed that literature?  I suspect it may exist in letters and conversations among the Subbers, but I sure can't seem to find it in the general domain.  Where is "How to build your own submarine"?

If the group wants to write, I will help write.  Some have suggested that the good stuff is already out there, and that we simply need to list and organize all of those references.  Others have suggested that we should bring the good stuff from all of those references together in one place.  I could do that too.  If you ask me, I would take a mixed approach.  It seems to me that there are certain areas of Psubbing that are pretty well covered elsewhere.  The formulas and specifications for design, for example.  There are other areas where I can find very little, such as the safe and efficient maintenance and operation of a small submarine once you have built it.  In those areas we would probably have to rely on the expertise of our most valuable resource, the Subbers, to generate new material.

My vision is that we would re-orient the current literature around a step by step process.  Not that building a submarine is a step by step process, but that the best way to present the process is to organize it that way.  There are plenty of books, like Busby, that are organized by topic.  This would be organized by process.  First, you decide what you want (and can afford) in a boat.  They you design the boat.  Then you build the boat, including purchasing and/or fabricating all of the components.  Then you test the boat.  Then you operate the boat.  Then you maintain the boat.  Then, over time, you modify the boat.  Each of these steps is divided into sub-steps, which are again divided into sub-sub steps.  You reference some information, you re-package some information, you generate some information, following this procedural outline.  Because a submarine is a work of art as well as a work of science, these are not hard and fast steps so much as guidelines to help move you through the process.  Just my thoughts.

In conclusion, I see Psubs as very inclusive.  You don't have to be a Subber to participate.  But by the same token, just because you are not a Subber, does not mean that you do not have to help out.  You do not have to be a Subber to add your area of expertise to the Psubs enterprise, whether your expertise is web development, mechanical drawing, database design, graphic arts, boat construction, scuba diving, or even literature (I am amazed that as exciting as Psubbing is, people who have done it share their designs more than their personal stories).  When people ask me "how can I thank you for getting us the Busby Books?", my reply is this "Don't thank me...imitate 
me".  Find something useful that YOU can do for the community, and do it.  If you can't think of anything, ask the group.  I can think of a dozen useful volunteer tasks that folks could be doing to build the Psubs community.  And I suspect the group could come up with an even longer list.  The Subbers are doing more than their share when the share their precious experience, based on personal experience.  The least the rest of us can do is pull our own weight.

Oh, sorry, time to get off of my soapbox, before I am knocked off.

Doug Farrow







me."