Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Replicas (was: Decisions decisions decisions....)

[Coalbunny <coalbunny@vcn.com>]

Yeah, the c-tower is a problem.  I figure that I could keep most of the
details fairly accurate if I expanded the width of the c-tower.  I'm
talking about nothing narrower than 2'6" for comfort reasons.

Nessie.  Hmmmmm.  Ideads man, ieas!  lol!  I have thought of that one
fairly seriously, but the biggest concern I have is some nut out
drinking and fishing, he sees Nessie and decides he's gonna take a REAL
trophy home, .357 hole included!  Or whatever caliber he has. 
Ordinarily this wouldn't be any concern.  But I have seen how psycho
some guys get while out fishing and drinking.  Was out fishing with an
uncle once back in '78 and we went by this one fellas "spot", opassed it
by 20-30 meters, and he went super psycho.  Cussing at us, throwing
empty beer bottles (and rocks when he was out of "empty" bottles) for
"scaring the fish away".  Glad he didn't have a gun right handy.

In all reality, though that concern does remain in my mind, it's not as
pronounced as it may seem.  So long as I'm aware of the potential
problems and solutions, I feel I'm better off.

But that nessie idea would be nice.  I'll make that #8.
Carl


Michael B Holt wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 19:49:50 -0700 Coalbunny writes:
> >I have done a lot of thinking about this, and it has literally taken
> >several years to make a concrete decision.  I have several ideas for a
> >sub, but couldn't figure out which one I was going to build first.
> 
> Not yet at your Carsten Point!
> 
> >They were an ambient sub for treasure hunting, a submersable habitat, a
> >replica sub and a real go-getter: an animal replica.  The last one
> >would be fun, that's for sure.  Couldn't decide if I wanted it to be a
> rainbow
> >trout, great white shark or the Loch Ness monster.  Ask yourself what
> >you'd be thinking if you saw one of those in a lake.  I think you get
> >the idea why I like that idea so much!
> 
> Hey, I read a great sci-fi story about the animal-replica idea!  It was
> written by a French writer in the 19th century.   A good translation
> wasn't available until a couple of years ago, but it's a good one even
> in bad translations.   The math works in the recent version, though.
> 
> Seriously, I did read somewhere that the best 19th-century book
> about submarine design was Verne's classic.   Once the math works
> right, the boat become a reasonable design.
> 
> >So from the legal standpoint, what are your thoughts on the replicas?
> >My concern is someone going psycho after seeing a great white shark in
> >Lake Powell and me being liable for it.  Is that possible?  I think it's
> >very realistic in this day and age.  And the liability issue is one of
> >the deciding factors.
> 
> I dunno about liability.   That might be a huge problem for an animal
> replica.   Common sense and education in natural sciences seem
> to have been left behind in the last decades.
> 
> When I was a teen, I sketched out a Nessie-inspired plesiosaur
> replica.   The long neck held a "sensor suite" of cameras, sonar
> and IR stuff (this was before LLTV).   Other than that, it was a lot
> like Cousteau's Diving Saucer with a stub tail and fins that ended
> in four large electric motors in pods.
> 
> >The other replicas would be of a larger sub.  One in particular I have
> >been considering is the USS Nautilus, SSN 571.  One thing to remember
> >is that on a replica, I would prefer staying as close to exact scale as
> >possible.  I realize that in some areas this can't be done.  Like the
> >c-tower, for example.  For something toliterally be an exact replica,
> >I know the size would be enormous.
> 
> I was thinking about this the other day.   The problem with a replica
> properly scaled is that the conning towers of real subs are usually
> very small.   To fit the head of a normal human, the entire sub has to
> be huge.  A Gato's conning tower -- the part with the people in it -- is
> eight feet in diameter.   To fit your head into it, it can't be much
> smaller
> than two feet across.   That means a properly scaled Gato shrinks to
> a terrifying 77.5 feet long.   If the humans fit into the pressure hull
> alone,
> we're still stuck with a monster 69 feet long (assuming a pressure
> hull diameter of 18 feet).
> 
> On the other hand, a Typhoon has a comfortably large sail ... but
> the overall boat is huge.   The top part of the sail is about one-third
> of the beam of the boat; that means the sail is 25 feet wide.  Taking
> that down to 2 feet wide would not quite work because the shoulders
> -- attached to the aforementioned head -- would not fit in the wide
> part at the base of the sail.  However, if the head sticks up only in
> the wide base of the sail, the view is limited to something that would
> be good only in a movie (along the deck).   So making the top part
> of the sail 4 feet wide means the replica is 156 feet, 3 inches, long.
> 
> A few months ago I was shown a Gato replica that was about
> 3 feet long.  The conning tower was an accurate shape but was
> on a hull that was about a third of the correct length.  That might
> be a good approach: shorten the hull but keep the shape.
> 
> All this suggests --  to me, anyway --  that the Seehund is the best
> one to replicate in a smaller size.   Reducing a Seehund's 5.5 feet
> beam to 4 feet means the whole thing drops to 28 feet, 4 inches.
> Shorten the hull a bit -- to, say, 24 feet, by removing some length
> forward of the conning tower -- and the thing becomes buildable.
> 
> A Biber is pretty good for the same thing.  Reducing the beam
> from 5.25 feet to 4 feet -- keeping the right scale -- reduces the
> boat to 22.5 feet.  That's even better.  Removing some of the
> length forward and abaft the conning tower would be possible
> here, too.
> 
> I'm going to keep working on the Argonaut Junior, for now.
> Holland's first boat is still on my list of boats to re-create,
> too.   Both of those can be built full-sized, and still fit easily
> on a small trailer.
> 
> On the other hand, an 18-foot rainbow trout would be a lot of fun.
> Or maybe a turtle or an ichthyosaur.   Hmmm .....
> 
> (I have entirely too much time on my hands.   I need a couple of
> new hobbies, or a mistress.)
> 
> Mike Holt
> 
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