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Cliff,
There is a guy up in Santa
Barbara who is farming shellfish. http://www.sbmariculture.com I
think I would start with something like this. I don't know if a sub would
really be any advantage but it might be a starting point. It
would be helpful just to see how many agencies you would have to go
through and logistics of doing it.
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 10:17
AM
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Discharging
Batteries
Brian,
Not nearly as controversial as
spearfishing, but how about search and rescue? In the Gulf, if a ship
within a certain distance from the coastline drops anything overboard, by law
they MUST recover it. It happens more than you would think, and it can
get real expensive real fast. If the ship was moving when it happened,
it could literally take days for commercial divers to run a search grid
and locate whatever fell overboard. A person in a sub could search the
area and "mark" his tracks by launching weighted fishing markers as he
went. They are buoyant, compact, and unwind an anchor (a small weight)
when released. I think it would be useful for Law Enforcement as well, a
friend is a diver for the Sherriff's Dept. his main function is locating
and recovering the bodies of drowning victims. Diving in our man-made
lakes can be very dangerous since most are dammed up rivers and still have
large trees and complex structure below the surface. A small sub could
search a whole lot longer than a diver, mark ground covered, and launch a
marker for the divers to follow once the victim is located. I've read
where this could be done by ROV's, but eliminating human
intuition in that kind of task seems pretty limiting. What do you
plan to farm in the ocean?
Best Regards,
Cliff
Anyway, that is very interesting that you have thought out some type of
speargun device from a sub.
Since my first realization
that I could actually build a working sub I started thinking about what I
would like to use it for. Research is always an option, but ocean
farming as alway peaked my interest. It's something that is starting
to happen in different parts of the world now on a limited basis.
With sport spearfishing there are limits on how many fish
you can take and what species are in season and so forth. I personally
have only spearfished out at our local islands with a Hawwaian sling with
only mask and snorkle. But what I'm wondering is., Bill
you said that underwater "firearms" are illegal, what it you shot a
air powered spear at a fish that you are going to eat ( not a protected
fish) and the spear is not connected by a cable. ( It seems like if you
had a cable you might be asking for entaglement problems.)
Would it be possible once the spear penetrated the fish that a small air
pladder could be activated which would send the fish to the surface?
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 4:01
PM
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST]
Discharging Batteries
The guns will be "fired" from inside
the sub (charging a pressure reservoir, locking it out, and then
redirecting the air to the "chamber" of the gun), all done with normal
steel pipe and ball valves. A piston located forward of the
chamber will push the spear out of the barrel and between two rods
spaced far enough apart to allow the spear to pass but not the
piston. The key to keeping the spear straight is using one or
more sabots inside the barrel, since the piston will be much bigger than
the spear. The sabots will keep the spear aligned until it exits the
barrel and the piston will push them out to clear the barrel after a shot
(for possible reloading?). A short length of steel cable is
wound around the piston and anchored to it. Once speared, at
least in my experience, most fish dive. The two bars mentioned above
will capture the piston and cause the fish to "ratchet" down to
somewhere below the sub where they will dangle until the sub surfaces and
they are manually captured. Worst case, they flail around above
until expired, eventually sinking through the ratcheting
mechanism to dangle below the sub. I plan to surface after a
couple of shots to keep the sharks from benefiting from all my hard
work. I am pretty sure I can build a gun for about as much as a
decent hand-held pneumatic gun (<$300.00). The motivation for all
this is the idea of spear-fishing at 1Atm for SEVERAL HOURS at a time with
no concern for dive tables, being able to survey a fishing area without
eating into dive time, having the ability to patiently wait for prey, not
worrying about how big a fish is and if I have enough air to fight it ( I
got real stupid once and shot a 35lb
barracuda with little air left in a single tank @ 80ft, the
dive master rightly refused to let me have a second dive that
day), and dramatically increasing the amount and type of fish caught
(provided I get the gun right!!). This type of hunting fits
unbelievably well with a psub. The sub only has to be able to
submerge to certain depths (in my case, about 120' maximum, normally
45-90'), manuever for very short periods of time, and hold a somewhat
stable position for 30 minutes or more (fish are curious, they will come
to you). I've speared most of my fish sitting on cross braces on oil
platforms, trying to conserve air by not swimming around too much.
My son's a commercial diver and he literally has to push them out of his
way when he's doing hull cleanings, prop maintenance, etc. I think
they will flock to a sub, especially if it's "just sitting there" with a
basket of crushed barnacles on top of it:).
Best Regards,
Cliff
Cliff,
How are you going
to spearfish while you're inside the sub? How will you
retrieve the fish? Are you thinking reeling them back into next to
the ship? I haven't totally figured what type of
spearfishing unit I'm going to use.
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005
12:04 PM
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST]
Discharging Batteries
Good Question. I actually
have a few of reasons. Putting them under the seats gets
them conveniently out of the way but still easily accessible for
change-out (from a support boat), eliminates several cubic
feet of cabin space that would otherwise have to be displaced by
adding more weight, doesn't add to the complexity of the shape of
the pressure hull, and minimizes the amount of "second skin" that I
will have to add to smooth the outside shape since I intend to spear
fish with pneumatic spearguns mounted on the sub. I
don't want fish on steel cables getting tied up on battery pods,
motors, etc. Due to the distance I have to travel to fish, I
have resigned myself to building a towable sub. For practical
reasons it will have to be as small as possible and somewhat
planeable(sp?) when towed. I think I hit most of the
reasons.
Thanks Again for your
Input,
Cliff
-----Original Message-----
From:
owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org]On Behalf Of
Akins
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 1:12
PM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject:
Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Discharging Batteries
Cliff,
Why not just put your batteries outside the cabin in battery
pods? That way you don't have the problem to begin with.
Kindest Regards,
Bill Akins.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005
3:12 PM
Subject: RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST]
Discharging Batteries
Actually, that's what prompted
my question. I blew a car battery up trying to jump-start
the wife's car. Fortunately, I had been using a skill-saw in
the garage moments before and was still wearing safety
glasses. After a really fast shower I retrieved
the safety glasses and noticed that they were literally dripping
with slimy acid residue, I still get chills thinking about
it. Since this occurred while attempting to charge the
battery, I was under the assumption that charging was
the culprit. Yours is the first time I've heard of
a battery exploding while under "normal" load. I'll
probably go with the AGM batteries and put some lockable 1/8"
steel plate between myself and the batteries anyway. Not
sure what I can do to ventilate the gases in the event of an
explosion, I was planning to shut down all electrical
systems, switch to emergency air (scuba
regulators/mouthpieces), and get to the surface
asap.
Thanks Everybody,
Cliff
Hi Cliff,
About sitting on batteries in a sub... Have you ever
seen/heard one explode? It CAN happen while discharging,
especially if there is a poor or corroded connection at the
battery pole enough that when you pull a fairly large current, a
spark may occur. Last summer my son got in my pickup and
went to start it. I had been driving it 15 min.
earlier. When he hit the starter, the battery exploded
under the hood with a sound of a deer rifle
shot. Acid went all over the engine
compartment, the battery was split wide open, and luckily, there
were no dents in the hood.
Moral of the story... IF you have to have them in the
compartment with you... make sure you are shielded from an
explosion, BUT make sure there is still ventilation to allow any
explosive gas to dissipate. PS Of course, my
pickup didn't have
hydrocaps!
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