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Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Deep Water Testing of Persistence
Dan - Great Story.
14 Days earlier Sgt.Peppers dammaged the forward vertical thruster
caseing because the towing boat smashed the sub into a bridge pillar..
The first deep test for Euronaut - estimate 2006 will be in the Norway
Trench down to 1050 feet - and manned. I decided to go alone - maybe
with the welder guy with me.. ;-)
regards Carsten
Ray Keefer schrieb:
>
> Hi,
>
> Dan Hryhorcoff had problems sending this to the alias
> and asked me to forward it on. Enjoy!
>
> Regards,
> Ray
>
> ===================================
>
> Deep Water Testing of Persistence
>
> I?ve been diving Persistence, my K-350 sub, for a year
> now working out some of the kinks and just having fun
> with it in relatively shallow water. According to
> common practice I need to submerge Persistence to a
> depth of 550 feet for about an hour to consider it
> safe for manned operation at a depth of 350 feet.
>
> This past weekend Persistence passed it?s test.
>
> A month ago Al Secor and I had attempted to do the
> test, but it was abandoned because of trouble we had
> with the surface boat. It was decided that we would
> make another attempt on September tenth.
>
> On the morning of the tenth of this month, my wife
> Kathy and I met Al and his girlfriend Christine at
> Watkins Glen, a small town at the southern end of
> Seneca Lake. My cousin Ted came along to photograph
> the event. Seneca Lake is the deepest of the Finger
> Lakes located in eastern New York State. It?s about
> two miles wide by about 35 miles long and was chosen
> for the test because of its 633 feet depth.
>
> After transferring the appropriate gear to each craft,
> we launched the sub first then Al?s middle size boat.
> He has three to choose from. This one was on its
> trailer and readied for the task. It?s a 24 foot
> inboard outboard with way more power then we needed
> but we were happy to have the extra freeboard it
> provided.
>
> We launched and each piloted our crafts out of the
> harbor a few hundred yards, then rigged for towing the
> sub. Al threaded a heavy short line through a pulley
> and attached it outboard on the transom, running from
> port to starboard. From the pulley he ran a towline
> back to Persistence. When we started towing, the boat
> could steer a relatively straight course even with the
> sub wandering from side to side following behind, like
> a duckling following its mother. The advantage of
> rigging in this manner was evident, watching the
> pulley run port and starboard along its line as the
> sub wondered.
>
> According to the chart of the lake, we needed to
> travel north from the marina four miles to reach a
> spot where the water was 550 feet deep. We were
> fighting a breeze from the north and the lake was a
> bit choppy. Towing the sub was like dragging a rock
> through the water. If we sped up, the sub would dip
> bow down and offer more drag. We had an early start
> so we toed slowly.
>
> About an hour later we arrived at the spot, according
> to our GPS. The fish finder blinked around from 520
> to 560 feet, so we knew we were in the area.
>
> Now it was time. We were really preparing for this
> test. I?ve thought about it for the last four years.
> Many times through building Persistence, the thoughts
> of gambling the entire project on a line at that depth
> made me redo things to get them as perfect as I could.
> I still wanted to have a sub when it was over. If
> Persistence sprung a leak at 550 feet, it would weigh
> about two tons and I would never be able to retrieve
> it from the bottom.
>
> By now the wind had picked up some more. We were
> seeing white caps but we were on location and it was
> time. We planned to first send down a weight on the
> line to prove the bottom depth. It seemed simple in
> the planning stages but we quickly found the wind
> blowing the boat southward and our weighted drop line,
> acting like a sea anchor trailing at about forty-five
> degrees downward and aft. With fifty feet of line
> out, we gave up and reeled it back in. The fish
> finders said it?s the place and the GPS said it?s the
> place so it must be the place.
>
> With that in mind, we started rigging the sub for its
> trip down. Christine, read off the checklist I made
> up, and my wife Kathy manned the spool of half-inch
> poly line we were hanging the sub on. I jumped over
> to the sub and did the doing as Al handed me the
> components and tools to complete each step. It sounds
> simple but by now we had all we could do to reach
> across between boats and also keep them from banging
> together. The water was getting even rougher. I tied
> on the retrieving line with more knots then necessary
> and then climbed in the sub and shut all the power
> down, closed off the air, put external plugs on the
> MBT vents, opened the MBT valves in the sub and put
> the equivalent of my weight in the sub which had an
> empty VBT. Next I climbed out, closed the hatch and
> installed a clamping device to hold it closed tightly.
>
>
> After that, I attached two weight pails to the release
> mechanism previously mounted on top, forward of the
> conning tower. Each pail contained an additional
> thirty pounds of scrap iron. In the water, they would
> be about twenty-five pounds each. They were rigged to
> be released by pulling on a second line running to the
> surface. I had a detailed system worked out with
> smaller weights to precisely balance the sub but the
> rough water made that impossible.
>
> We hadn?t released the air from the MBT?s yet when we
> realized that in the time it took us to prep the sub
> we had drifted about a mile south in the wind and were
> now in only 350 feet of water. The only thing we
> could do was try dragging the weighted sub back up
> north again. To our surprise, it seemed more stable
> in tow with its extra weight. After approximately an
> additional half hour tow, we were north of the dive
> site so as to be on target when Persistence contacted
> the bottom.
>
> Once again I got back on the sub. I handed Al a line
> from one weight pail and unscrewed the MBT plugs
> releasing air. Al held up one weight pail with the
> line from the boat. When the last of the air came
> spurting out of the sub?s main ballast tanks, the sub
> seemed near neutral buoyant so we figured our weight
> guess was close but it was difficult to tell exactly
> how close in the rough water.
>
> The plan called for the sub to be neutral buoyant with
> all the fixed weight and one weight pail. The second
> weight pail would make it twenty-five pounds heavy and
> when we dropped them both off after the test, the sub
> should become twenty-five pounds light and return to
> the surface. Good plan! All we had to do now is
> accomplish it in this rough water and not get our ½
> inch poly retrieval line tangled in our smaller
> release line.
>
> Al released the second pail and the girls held onto
> the lines. The sub started going down as I climbed
> back into the boat. OK, Start timing! We were paying
> out both lines faster then I had expected. Kathy
> manned the spool of poly line and Christine reeled out
> the weight release line. Before we started with the
> test, I marked the line with colored coded tape at
> fifty-foot increments.
>
> Before attempting this test I did some experimenting
> in a nearby shallow lake, I figured it should take the
> sub about fifteen minuets to reach the bottom. Now
> we found ourselves paying out both lines really fast
> but they were going at an angle of about forty-five
> degrees aft. We could stop the decent but not without
> gloves on. The wind was dragging us down the lake as
> fast as the sub we descending. To counter act this,
> Al periodically ran the boat in reverse to try to hold
> location. It was a fight as we paid out line and
> avoided the boat?s prop. Eventually the sub seemed to
> stop taking down the lines. We had just gone past the
> 550 foot mark on the main line. We backed again to
> where the line was about vertical. We figured the sub
> was about 540 feet down. A mere stepladder?s reach
> from where it was supposed to be. Now for the wait!
>
> For about ten minuets we held on to both the weight
> release line and the sub retrieval line trying to keep
> them apart. In that ten minuets Al had to back the
> boat up three times to prevent dragging the sub across
> the bottom. We feared dragging the sub may cause it
> to get entangled with whatever might be lurking down
> there. After the third time backing, Christine
> suggested we tie the lines to boat fenders and toss
> them in the water. I was having a difficult time
> parting with the poly line in my hands, knowing it was
> the only life line to my Persistence. I dreaded the
> thoughts of getting it entangled down that deep. In
> my original plan for the test, I thought I would hold
> the poly retrieval line in my hand and tug the sub off
> the bottom every few minutes, just in case it was
> gaining weight from a slow leak. With the rough water
> this was impossible anyway. We attached the fender
> floats and over the side they went.
>
> We were still getting blown south, down the lake. We
> would ride it down a ways, then power up and go back
> northward to drift past the floats again. This was no
> hurricane we were dealing with but it sure wasn?t
> smooth water either. After countless passes up and
> down and me asking constantly asking how many minutes
> have passed, we finally reached forty-five minutes.
> The sub was supposed to stay down there for sixty
> minutes but without having a line in my hand to yank
> on to check if Persistence was ever coming back up, I
> couldn?t take the wait any longer. I said, ?Let?s
> head back and start the retrieval. It will take us
> the next fifteen minutes to get it off the bottom
> anyway.? Al was heading over to the floats slowly for
> us to retrieve them when the wing caught the boat and
> sent it floating right over the line. The line
> snagged the stern drive. SCUBA Al to the rescue!
> Christine took the wheel and Al went down under to
> free the line.
>
> With Al back on board and holding the retrieval line,
> I started pulling up on the release line. I pulled
> and pulled, stretching the small line as it came up
> but it only got harder to pull. I thought surely it?s
> caught on something. I only hoped it was the sub and
> not a sunken tree branch or worse. With releasing the
> weights not an option, the only thing to try is
> pulling the sub up by hand. The sub went down fast so
> I knew it was heavier then the twenty-five pounds it
> was supposed to be. Al and I pulled on the poly
> retrieval line hand over hand. We were gaining line
> but it was difficult to tell if we were pulling the
> sub across the bottom, the boat backward toward the
> sub, stretching the line, or raising the sub from the
> bottom as we hoped. After we pulled fifty feet of
> line up, we both thought it was a good sign. One of
> us alone couldn?t have raised it but pulling together
> and using the boats up and down motion to our
> advantage, we were gaining on it. At the next fifty
> foot mark we had to stop and rest. We continued
> pulling and resting until we got to the three hundred
> foot mark where we found the problem with the release
> line.
>
> Apparently as the sub was going down, maybe because of
> the twisted braids in the line, it revolved around
> about eight times, all in the length of five feet. We
> unwrapped eight turns of the release line wound around
> the retrieving line. Once it was freed, I again
> pulled the release line in and after it stretched a
> bit, it popped free. Instantly the poly retrieval
> line became slack and we knew the weights had come
> off. We started winding them both in slowly.
>
> Slowly but finally, Persistence was coming home on her
> own. We spent several minutes watching the angle of
> the yellow poly line moving closer to horizontal.
> Following its direction, we eventually saw a blurred
> yellow submarine rising its last few feet to the
> surface of Seneca Lake about seventy feet behind us..
> What a sight! Once at the surface it bobbed around
> like a beautiful yellow cork. The temporary red
> external hatch holddown fixtures were about all that
> actually broke the surface but its buoyancy didn?t
> matter now. It was on top.
>
> Al, being a much better swimmer then I and also a nice
> guy, got into the water once again. I handed two pipe
> plugs down to him and he swam over to the sub to
> temporarily cap off the MBTs. After doing that
> without sending any pipe caps to the lake bottom, I
> handed down a SCUBA tank tied to another boat fender
> for a little extra buoyancy. Al took the tank and
> swam over to the sub again, submerged himself and the
> tank, then gave a shot of air up under the open bottom
> of the aft MBT. The sub instantly got higher in the
> water. He did this three more times moving between
> the aft MBT and the forward MBT. With the sub now on
> top and riding as it should be, Al connected the
> towline once again and climbed back aboard the boat.
>
> All that tossing and turning in the rough water didn?t
> seem to affect Persistence nearly as much as it did
> our crew. If you notice, there hasn?t been much said
> in the later part of this story about my wife Kathy or
> my photographer cousin Ted. They weren?t actually
> green yet and we still wouldn?t know what they last
> ate without asking, but they didn?t look happy
> anymore. It was time to head for shore and it was
> nothing so soon for Kathy and Ted.
>
> With Persistence tied behind, Al started up the boat
> and we headed south, the way the wind has been telling
> us to go all day. After the test, Persistence seemed
> proven tougher now and we didn?t hesitate to put a bit
> more throttle to the boat pulling her. Al's boat was
> taking her south and Persistence had no choice but
> oblige. It followed like the full grown duck it had
> been proven to be, throwing off a wake that at times
> would splash over the hatch cover. Now it is a real
> proven, three hundred and fifty foot diving sub, and
> proud of it!
>
> Upon returning, we unhooked the towline and I climbed
> aboard Persistence for a trip through the marina and
> to the launch ramp, under her own power. We loaded
> both the sub and boat on their respective trailers
> under the watchful eye of the usual many on lookers
> and answered the usual bunch of questions with the
> usual bunch of answers. Only this time we could say
> ?it went to 540 feet? instead of ?its supposed to be
> able to go to 540 feet.?
>
> After we left the marina, we went to a nice restaurant
> up on the western mountain that borders the lake, just
> outside of town. We talked, toasted the day?s events,
> and ate while watching the sun go down on the lake as
> its surface was becoming more and more calm.
>
> I want to thank the many folks that have helped make
> my entire sub experience happen. Everyone, starting
> with some of you in PSUBS that have guided me through
> parts of the building, you computer guys that make
> PSUBS happen, Captain Kittredge for his expert
> guidance, John Maynard who sold me the plans and
> visited at the lake, my crew that followed me through
> this project and others like it, and most of all, Al
> Secor who has been there when his diving skills and
> boat were needed most.
>
> Thanks a lot, all!
> Dan Hryhorcoff
>
>
> __________________________________
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>
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