Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] reconnaissance -- Sailboat/Sub

about 20yrs ago i was staying with a friend (and gfs father) in surabaya, indonesia. he was an expat pommie who later became an expat aussie but had spent 30 or 40 yrs working in asia. He was a mad keen sailor and had always been talking about buying a junk and sailing around the world.

he chose the junk mostly because of the wide beam and general stability (and i am just going from his comments of 20yrs ago). He said they have no keel and therefore tend to slip sideways over the surface from time to time.

Materials were sometimes excellent wood like teak - and for this reason many of the better ones have been broken down for timber. They were apparently poorly constructed with huge gaps between the boards (and we were looking at one hauled up on the beach at the time - the gaps were around 1 inch). these were heavily caulked and would be a seive otherwise - almost as if the wood was just a frame for the filler.

His idea was to buy and rebuild the junk using power tools - just a fraction smaller than the original and minus all the holes :)

Anyway, instead he got divorced, ran off with the housekeeper and retired to Nth Queensland Australia. He built a bucky dome house out of concrete he spayed onto wire (he was an engineer) up in a rainforest somewhere. Unfortunately he died of stomach cancer about 10yrs ago (maybe from eating too much chilli all those years?)

The junk is a great idea (maybe even wide enough to open up and drop a sub through the bottom?) but hard to find in the USA and fraught with a few traps for the unwary.

peter

-----Original Message-----
From: DJACKSON99@aol.com
Sent: Jun 27, 2004 1:37 PM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] reconnaissance -- Sailboat/Sub

Brian

Right. Big it would be. I'm thinking about something like a Chinese Junk. I like the park it and leave it idea. Go a step further and put autonomous controls on it and let it park and return on command. The SEALS would like that. A sub that sits on the bottom just off shore until it is needed. Turn on a transponder with the right pulse sequence and it comes to you. I am fascinated with the work college students are doing with AUV's. Those kids could probably rig it up in a few weeks. The advances in AUV and ROV's has got to be putting a lot of pressure on organizations to cut back on their 1ATM vehicles. I wonder how long it will be before PSubs are the majority of 1ATM owners because the military, marine companies and researchers are all using AUVs. Maybe there will be some good deals on used subs? Think Woods Hole would sell the old Alvin on ebay? I'll open the bidding a $10 :)

Ok ..back to grinding

Doug J

In a message dated 6/26/2004 9:00:55 PM Central Daylight Time, ojaibees@ojai.net writes:

Doug, That might actually work if the sailboat was big enough ! Or you could park your sub on the bottom and leave it there, fill all your air tanks from the sailboat, go down with scuba and raise it from valves located outside the pressure hull and you're ready to go ! Bring it in every 6 months for cleaning.

Brian

----- Original Message -----

From: DJACKSON99@aol.com

To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org ; Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org

Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 9:03 AM

Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] reconnaissance -- Sailboat/Sub

Got a solution for ya Brian. Build a sailboat but integrate a submarine into the keel. Sail to your destination, drop anchor, climb into your sub, release the docking clamps and drop away from the boat. Your sailboat does not need the ballast when its at anchor and as you only pay a small weight penalty. You can move and transport boat and sub separately, you get view ports in the hull of you sailboat, and you'll have the only sailboat will a moon pool while the sub is undocked. That's my dream boat. A live a board sail powered boat with a built in sub.

Ok, back to work. I better make the current dream work first.

Doug J

http://www.submarineboat.com/