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RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Run Silent, Run Cheap-Shot
I'm not trying to be a trouble maker, but what didn't you like about the
story? I think it reads quite well, doesn't make psubbers look bad, in
fact it makes us look intelligent and safety conscious. The details of
the dives might not be accurate, but the readers don't care. They don't
know any different.
Ron
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of Jorge
Lourenço Jr.
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 5:25 AM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: RES: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Run Silent, Run Cheap-Shot
The article can be found here:
http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0331/062.html
or here:
================================================================
Run Silent, Run Cheap
David Armstrong, 03.31.03
If you've got the metal, the mettle and $20,000, you can be your own
Captain Nemo.
Patrick Regan still gets breathless recalling the first time he
submerged in his own sub. It was only a two-minute dive in 10 meters of
water, near the town of Benicia off San Francisco Bay. But after a
lifetime of dreaming about it--and 30 months wrestling with acetylene
torches, arc welding guns and 1,100 kilograms of metal in his yard--it
felt like his own personal moon shot.
In March of 1991, with spectators lining the shore--and his wife, Lynn,
standing by in scuba gear, in case things went wrong--the 53-year-old
flight instructor scrunched down into a cockpit scarcely bigger than
himself. He closed the hatch and started up a battery-powered motor.
As the narrow, 5-meter-long craft moved out across the water, he turned
a hand valve and heard water burbling into ballast tanks. Daylight faded
to dark, as murky, greenish-brown water rose up over the two viewports.
"It was terrifying," recalls Regan. Then he pitched the sub's nose back
up, and suddenly--boom!--he surfaced, back into daylight. "It was like
being reborn," he says.
If you are lazy, you can buy your way into the underwater world. For $20
million, U.S. Submarines will custom-build you an underwater yacht,
tricked out with staterooms, wood paneling, leather seats and a wet bar.
(Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen is rumored to be interested.)
When Regan got his urge to submerge he didn't have $20 million. He was 5
years old, the year was 1954, and he had just seen Walt Disney's 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea. Wet bar, hell! Regan wanted to be Captain Nemo.
As an adult he spent three years researching submarine design, then
bought a 4-meter hull salvaged from a boatyard. Reinforcing rings added
to its inside give it strength to withstand depths up to 120
meters--four times as deep as a scuba diver typically can go. Regan has
tempted fate to only 30 meters so far. He figures he's spent
approximately $15,000. Most amateur builders spend a bit more.
Having a tolerant spouse helps. So, too, does encouragement from other
submariners. A website started by homebuilt-sub enthusiast and Sun
Microsystems programmer Raymond Keefer lets builders swap pictures of
their projects and engage in heady email conversations on such topics as
how to calculate "crush depth"--the depth at which your sub implodes
like a beer can. (For links, go to forbes.com/subs.)
Safety? The amateur builders' record is good. In the past 12 years
there's been only one known fatality, which occurred when a 30-year-old
engineer from Michigan cracked his viewport (apparently on a log) at the
bottom of Green Lake.
Retired Navy Captain George Kittredge, 84, has built craft so safe
they've been certified by three marine engineering agencies, including
the American Bureau of Shipping. His most recent one-man design, built
last summer, is muscle-powered. Its skipper can pedal down to 75 meters,
as if by bicycle. On the surface the sub hoists a mast and proceeds by
sail.
Karl Stanley, 28, was in the third grade when he told his family he was
going to build his own submarine. He spent years reading voraciously
about subs and called professional designers for advice. When he turned
15 he got serious and, with savings from his after-school job in an ice
cream shop, bought a 3-meter-long, 60-centimeter-diameter pipe for $500
from a metal supply store. He had it towed to his parents' Ridgewood,
New Jersey, home, where he paid another $200 to a boat welder to put
strengthening rings inside, picking up pointers on welding as he went.
He worked on his sub off and on throughout high school, then hauled it
with him on a boat trailer to Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida,
where he paid for its completion by buying and selling used textbooks.
After eight years and $20,000 in parts and supplies, he finally
submerged in 1997, the same week he graduated from college.
Dubbed C-Bug (for "controlled buoyancy underwater glider"), Stanley's
sub operates without a motor or propellers. Six ballast tanks, three on
each side, project from the hull like wings. By letting in water and
then pushing it out with compressed air from tanks, Stanley can dive,
swoop to a depth of 210 meters and soar back up, like a glider in an
airstream. He's at work now on a new sub--a three-person job he says
will descend to 900 meters.
Submerged, Stanley has been chased by schools of amberjacks. Topside,
he's been hounded by other nosy creatures. Boats from the Coast Guard
and Florida Marine Patrol once converged on him, the authorities
demanding to know what this thing was and whether it might not be
obstructing sea lanes. "They held me up for about two hours," he
recalls. "They had guns, bulletproof vests, and they're flipping through
this little book looking for a law." What rules, though, applied to a
5-meter boat without a motor? Legally it was the same as a canoe.
"Finally they just let me dive," he says. "There was nothing they could
do."
================================================================
"I found it inaccurate, misleading, and objectionable ..."
Me too !
Jorge
-----Mensagem original-----
De: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org]Em nome de Captain Nemo
Enviada em: sexta-feira, 28 de março de 2003 08:32
Para: Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org
Assunto: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Run Silent, Run Cheap-Shot
David Armstrong just sent me two complimentary issues of FORBES MAGAZINE
containing the article on homebuilt submarines. I found it inaccurate,
misleading, and objectionable on so many levels I can't list them all
here.
I agreed to participate in this project (1) because Armstrong assured me
he'd represent homebuilt submarine enthusiasts in a positive light, and
(2) because I thought FORBES was a reputable publication. After reading
RUN SILENT, RUN CHEAP I now see FORBES as akin to the NATIONAL
INQUIRER.
Never again will I let my story be told by non-subbers who don't know
what they're talking about.
Pat Regan
VULCANIA SUBMARINE
Hawaii
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