Paul & Dan (ref: your reponses below)
I need to cut total interior floodable space by at least half. What everyone's been telling me has sunk in, the numbers aren't lying. Myles was correct, it's either a sub or a glass bottom boat.
If one where to consider the free flooding fairing idea more closely, how do you provide sufficient surface buoyancy for the structure without running into the same problems all over again?
These WWII boats do not "scale' down well and a short and stubby "caricature" shape would actually be easier to control. Damn problems keep rearing their ugly little heads!
Joe
From: Paul Kreemer <paulkreemer@gmail.com>
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] "Frankenboot"
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 11:46:06 -0800
Joe, just writing to put in a plug for Dan's suggestion: that you first consider the displacement of your minimally sized dry compartment and then treat the rest of the vessel as a fairing. The fairing would add some displacement, especially being built of plywood but you'd have to get the whole thing into your target displacement. The first step would be to choose your desired dry weight and/or crew compartment volume. (10,000lb? which is almost 160cf.)
You could add in your maybe 30% reserve buoyancy (48cf) for good surface operation but those are just variable ballast tanks, mostly for surface use and emergency surfacing, right? They wouldn't add to the displacement of the boat and the whole thing really would weigh 10,000lb on a trailer.
This seems like a better way to describe a WWII-style homebuilt that will be good on the surface - a modest pressure compartment with a big free-flooding fairing. You could do a big deck and superstructure like on that nice S-44 replica, but you would need some propulsion power to move such a rig submerged!
Please correct me if I'm wrong on this - certainly there are different ways to approach the design process.
Paul
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Dan H. wrote:
Maybe your only planning to build a small pressure hull with a big fairing for your subs appearance. If so, then your displacement is only your pressure hull and the fairing can be free flooding and not part of your displacement equation at all.