Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dry ambient concept

[Peter McKellar <mckellar@earthlink.net>]

Hi Alex,

FRP is Fibre (glass) Reinforced Plastic (maybe polymer) to the best of my knowledge (and shoot me down folks if I am way off here).  Basically the same stuff used to make surfboards, canoes and lots of marine craft.

The reason I issued the Aussie Roll Call was to swap notes onlocal suppliers - no doubt you have experienced getting hold of technical things can at times be easy but is more frequently impossible, expensive and/or you must wait up to 3 months for it to be imported :(  Erik (ex-pat oz) passed on this:

However, I do have one tip: if you are looking for large amounts of fibreglass matting and 
resin, go straight to a custom-surfboard manufacturer. The little guys 
who work out of a shed, and they can sell you mounds of the stuff at 
about 25% of hardware-shop prices.

As for the trailer idea, the archives contain discussion on this subject.  One issue you may not have yet considered is water access.  The typical boat ramp (in NSW at least) is just a concrete ramp into the water.  Damaging the sub by too steep an angle of entry (and getting it back out) is an issue.  I am assuming I guessed right on the weight and towability trade-off.  I too have considered this and think your solution has great merit (re incorporating the trailer into the sub).

last year some time an english guy 'launched' a new amphibious car/speedboat onto the market.  Apparently it goes fast on land and fast on the water.  He has some patented method of folding the wheels up (like an aircrafts landing gear?).  This would be extremely cool for a sub, but the tyres being pneumatic could cause issues - do you put them in their own pressure chamber, let them squash, dry ambient, what?  This would at least allow you to design around the drag problem of leaving them dangling :)

cheers
peter