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
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 3:15
AM
Subject: Freya for sale?
Hi Peter.
My name is Bill Akins. I am a personal sub
owner and a member of psubs.org
I have followed your stories about Freya and
Kraka online. They are both fantastic.
Kraka looks like it came from the WW2
Kreigsmarine. I love those torpedo tube viewports!
We have a member at Psubs.org that was
interested in getting a WW2 style looking sub
and I thought I remembered somewhere seeing
that Freya was for sale. Is Freya for sale?
If she is, what is the asking price? Did you
leave the diesel out of her and is she still
just electric powered? If either of your subs are for sale, I will pass
on any information I get from you
to the psubs member who is interested in
getting that style of sub.
Thanks very much,
Bill Akins.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 5:51
PM
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] 2005 Award
Nomination Status
I vote for Peters Kraka..
http://www.prismnet.com/~moki/20051223.194934/DasXBootX1.jpg
http://www.prismnet.com/~moki/20051223.194934/Krakasurface.JPG
http://www.prismnet.com/~moki/20051223.194808/=Xiso-8859-1XQX5_D=E5b_af_Kraka.jpgX=
More
here : http://www.prismnet.com/~moki/subfiles.html
Full
operable since this 2005.
regards
Carsten
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