|
Oops! I accidently sent this the first time without
typing anything.
Hi Joe.
I was thinking the same thing as Paul. Keep your
cabin just large
enough for a few people and flood the rest of the
superstructure. Easier to take
a smaller bubble under than a large one. You could
even build floodable storage
areas into the floodable superstructure to hold
things that you needed, like deck
chairs, etc. Then when you surfaced you and your
crew could enjoy the deck area.
That way if you want a submersible version of that
S boat replica, you get the look, but not the
interior bubble space unless you flatbed and
tractor trailer it. The smaller the bubble displacement
the less weight you need. I like the idea very much
though. The first time I saw that S boat replica
like you I thought how cool it would be to have a
real sub like that. You mentioned you would only
use it to submerge shallow and not for long
periods. If you did that perhaps you could minimize the
pressure hull volume to a very small space
just big enough to comfortably seat 3 or 4 crew with no
extra room left over, then when things began to
feel a bit cramped, you could surface and use that
big deck. Since
you have realized you have to go smaller with the hull, how much room would you
need for say 3 or 4 people to just sit comfortably
in it for a hour or so, and once you calculate that
how much weight do you need, and will that
allow you to trailer it on a regular trailer? I had another
idea for you Joe. Looking at Paul's drawing made me
wonder.....why not just build a kittridge sub and
build a plyood/fiberglass superstructure on it to
look like an S boat? Your superstructure put over the
kittridge sub would create more weight so you
wouldn't need as much ballast weight too. You would have
to calculate the weight of the normal kittridge sub
WITHOUT your S boat looking superstructure,
and then add the superstructure's weight to that,
to calculate how big to build your ballast tanks
which you might have to make a bit larger possibly
because of the extra weight of the superstructure,
but then again, you might not have to modify their
size at all and simply use less ballast weight.
Does that sound interesting to you? Since you
realize you are not going to have the room in the
pressure hull that the replica had with it's
spacious accomodations, why not just use an existing
sub kit and dress it up to look like the S boat?
Just a thought.
Bill.
|