Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Needlefish = F.U.B.A.R. Bill Akins

[Barry Daly <bdaly101@yahoo.com>]

Bill Gifford is a member of the psub group.  He got a psub award for the design and got information and help with how to build her from the psub group too. You should be asking yourself this.   If she was a good sub and he had to sell her then why not offer her to his friends at the psub group first or tell them about it at least?  Why isn?t she for sale at Gifford Marine?  Why does he not want to answer questions?  If he has a back problem then why don?t his crew work the boat for him? 

 

Look at the pictures like Gifford said.  She?s always hanging from the boatlift with at least one line taught and she?s never trim.  If she was ever underway would he not have pictures of it?  Or if she ever made a dive?  He would have pictures of that.  But there isn?t any because it never happened.

 

This auction is a big deal but I can see none of you want to talk about it in public.  I know Bill Gifford is your friend but I just hope nobody gets rooked or hurt by that white elephant he built.

 

N. J. Clammer

Barry Daly <bdaly101@yahoo.com> wrote:

Bill Akins,

 

Below you said what many are thinking.  Your email must be passed on to the psub group.

 

N. J. Clammer  

 

 

From:	"Akins" <lakins1@tampabay.rr.com>
To:	bdaly101@yahoo.com
Subject:	Needlefish sub. From Bill Akins
Date:	Thu, 3 Nov 2005 16:10:41 -0500

 

 Dear Barry.

 

I wanted to write you off the psub list and ask you some questions about the Needlefish.

 

I saw your response to Carsten about whether the needlefish had any dives yet.

 

I noticed on the e bay ad for the needlefish that the owner would not accept e mails asking

 

questions about the needlefish. I also noticed from  Doug Farrow's psubs post that the owner

 

is claiming a bad back as the reason for selling it and is very short with his answers and does

 

not seem to want to discuss much about the sub..

 

In my thinking, if I had spent 5 years building a sub I would have to be in traction or the hospital

 

with a bad back before it would stop me from running the dream sub I had just built. I speak from

 

experience after having had two major back spinal surgeries in the past ten years. By the owner not

 

wanting to discuss the sub very much to potential buyers it makes me suspect whether the sub is

 

any good and if I was a potential buyer I would want a test ride before I bought it. By his auctioning

 

it on e bay that shows he wants to sell it to the highest bidder without that bidder ever having that test

 

ride opportunity. Further, according to his e bay ad, the owner requires whoever wins the sub auction

 

to sign a lialibility disclaimer about the sub which may not even guarantee the workability of the sub instead

 

of just disclaiming any responsibility for future operator error on the previous owner's part.

 

These questions I had in my own mind, coupled with your post at psubs makes me

 

think something just doesn't smell right about this sub. From what I have seen I think he built a very

 

visually appealing sub that doesn't work correctly and wants to unload that white elephant without

 

explaining too much about it or giving a test ride. His statements on the ad telling us to look at the pictures

 

of the sub's construction and glean for ourselves how well she is built, sounds like a diversion as to whether

 

or not the sub actually WORKS or not.  Is that about how you feel also? Do you think he is trying to recover

 

his expenses and unload a non working white elephant without incurring any lialbility on his part as to whether it

 

works or not?

 

Thanks,

 

Bill Akins.

Barry Daly <bdaly101@yahoo.com> wrote:

The talk is Gifford finished that sub last year but it didn't work.  He tried to fix it but it won't trim and the ballast setup doesn't work.  She's got major design problems so she never got off the boatlift.  He can't run her afloat much less get her to dive.  I would like to see Bill prove this wrong.

 

N. J. Clammer

 

 sealordone@aol.com wrote:

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

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