I'll second Carsten's nomination. Peter's Kraka is
awesome!
By the way fellows. I contacted Peter a while back
thanks to Carsten
for giving me his e mail address. Peter told me he
was actually thinking of
scuttling Freya and making a dive
wreck out of her! He was serious. But he would
prefer to give Freya to someone who would continue to use her and keep her operating.
However Peter would
still retain ownership technically of her. He told me that whoever
gets her would probably never have to give her back
to him, but he still wants
to retain ownership technically of her. I
don't really understand
his reasoning for retaining ownership of Freya if
he wants to give her away, and
especially since he is also considering sinking her
for a dive wreck, so I don't understand
why he would care what happened to Freya if he gave
her away if he is thinking of
sinking her for a wreck anyway, but it is his boat and he can do whatever he likes with her.
I told Peter I wouldn't mind having Freya if he wanted to give her away and I could
possibly
have her shipped to my area in a freighter cargo container. He told me to check on this and
get back with
him, but I have not had the chance to further
pursue this due to a recent tragedy in my family
and right now I do not have the spirit or
motivation to do much of anything sub wise right now.
I might later check on this if I ever snap back to
my old self, but if no one steps up to ask for Freya and meets
Peter's
standards for her continued operation, I fear
he may sink her as he mentioned he might do.
I would hate to see that happen to Freya. She has
that cool U boot look that I love albiet with forward viewports.
So I am letting you all know in case anyone else
here would like to contact him about her.
I would rather miss out on having her than see her
sunk as a dive wreck.
Freya was originally electric and diesel, but Peter
has removed the diesel and she is only
electric now. But I guess you could install another
diesel if you wanted to. I think he took
it out to make for more space. So she has limited
range, but who cares? She is still an
excellent electric boat. If I got her Peter would
have to come to Tampa, Fl to show me
to ropes on operating Freya. I would of course have
to pay the shipping to bring her here..
But remember, he will still technically
own her. Perhaps Phil Nuyten could use her for
the museum?
Sorry Phil, I probably spelled your last name
wrong. I forgot the spelling.
Anyway, below are the e mails between Peter
and I in case anyone is interested in acquiring Freya.
Bill Akins.
Hi Bill,
Freya weighs 3.2 tonnes dry, and is 7.5 meter long
and has a narrow 1.0 meter beam. A few words on practical
operation...
One of the basic problem that hit me when I
designeds the Freya was the problem of
coating the inner surfaces inside the casing and ballast tanks. The problem was
never solved, since
fixing it would hav ment bolting the boat together
at a large number of points. What makes the Freya a simple boat is the fact that
it is all welded, with very few bolt connections.
So inside the tanks, and on the top of the
pressurehull corrosion slowly eats up little Freya. However - the smart thing is
that this is a very very slow proces. In ouer waters some 0.1 mm is eaten
every
year, and that forms a 0.7 mm rustlayer, that makes
further corrosion even slower. I cut small sample holes every year to check
thickness, and what started as a 3.0 mm stealsheat has no place become less
than
a 2.7 mm rusted stealsheat. If you prefer imperial
units, just divide this with 25.4 and the numbers becomes inches.
Corrotion is electrochemistry, and we have added a
chemical solution, that is the true reason for the slow decay. Bloks of zinch
are boltet to the boat and this electropositive metal protects the boat in an
electrochemical way. However this only works when the boat in in an electrolyte
- e.g. seawater - and that means
KEAP THE BOAT IN THE WATER PERMANENT.
Every time we pull her up the boat rusts a
lot, and if we did it over and over again It would shorten its life by several
years.
Kraka suffers from the same problem, but on a
number of places we have doubbled the thickness of her hull to
increase lifetime. By the way every VIIC and every other doubblehulled or semi
doubblehulled submersible in the world has this in-build death sentence...and
they suffer every time they are taken out of their natural element.
High salinity - as in your part of the world may
increase corrotion as well.
The electric system of the boat is fairly simple
and it uses 24 Volt DC for just about everything. It contains a 230 volt AC 8
bar kompressoer, like the ones used in every contruction yard - and a big
200 liter HP air storage tank, integrated in the hull.
To "americanice" it this will need to be replaced with a 110 device, plus a
new charger. No sweat.
Transport - it goes by container - and you
have to find a shipping agent who can give you a prize and a date. A container
from Denmark to Japan costs just under 2000 us doller, and you dont need a full
20 " container but part of a 40" container - so you need professionel
help.
It would not be a free meal - I will still be the
owner, but most likely you can have the boat for the remains of her life. Whats
importent to me is that Freya keeps making people happy, the kids smile
and the adults facinated. That is her mission.
Finaly I must come to Tampa, to give you
instructions in the use of this boat...
How is the visibility in your waters ?
-Ok, I recomend you check out on the logitics
of this mission, and get back to me. Is very interesting with container
transport sice Kraka can go to Fiji or Pearl harbor in that
way...
I guess you have seen Mr. Blazejewicz homepage on
Freya - if not there are links on the front of www.submarines.dk
Regards,
Peter
Hi Bill,
Freya as build in 2001 as an experiment. The
experiment has turned out very well, in that and by now the boat has dived some
400 times and has given about as many people a joy ride under water. It most
often dives with a crew of two or thee persons.
The boat still fully operational, within its
limetations. We dont dive Freya to more than ten meters, and we cant sail at
full speed on the accumulators for more than 1.5 hours. Surfaced speed is 3.5 to
4 knots
The boats quadruple ballasttanks gives the operator
exelent control over the boats debth, it can easily be parked on density layers
in the water, and can be dived or surfaced in a few seconds. The boat is fittet
with nice big windows, tested to extreme overload.
Freya in my mind is to small for
diesel machinery - but the batteries can be
upgraded to 3 hours with limeted trubble.
The dive debth can be increased by diving the boat
unmanned to say 25 meters or 40 meters and then using it to say half that debth.
The theoretical colapse debth is 135 meters.
Freya is an amateur build submarine, with no
classification, authorisation or anything else - she exists - and works fine,
but there is no papers to certify anything.
With the introduction of Kraka, Fraya has
become less technically interesting for me, so I keep it mostly for
sentimental reasons, and is planning to sink her as a diver and
submarine visit wreck in a not too far future...unless someone wish to have it.
There is no price, I would love to hand it
over to a dedicated amatur, who will care for it and love it the way I
did.
Only demand is that its stays operational,
preferebly in exotic waters.
Regards,
Peter Madsen
|