Carsten,
Needlefish has not been tested. Bill says he took one, single, very shallow dive in her. He did not report any problems. I asked what more it would take to complete her, but he said he does not want to take the time to draw up a list. He will gladly sit down with the winning bidder and detail everything there is left to do. My guess is that it is mostly testing rather than construction work, but he did not comment on that. His answers to me have been extremely brief.
I am of the impression that he put about $75,000.00 in cash out-of-pocket, and a few thousand hours of manpower, into the Needlefish, but would be happy at this point simply to recover his out-of-pocket expenses. His website says 2000 hours and his ebay post says 4000 hours and I am not about to press him on that. He also spend 1,000 hours learning all he could about submarines (he owns and runs a huge Marina in New Jersey).
Doug Farrow