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[PSUBS-MAILIST] New project

Hello all,
 
I have been following the mailing list for a while, and thinking about a sub project. It s time I share my thoughts with you, as the project becomes clearer for me (and my wife):
 
OBJECTIVES
-short&shallow fun&exploration dives in possibly low visibility/strong current sea environment (eg Brittany, France)
-long distance shallow dives, human powered (eg cross the channel)
-exploration type deep dives wrecks, deep caves (eg fontaine de Vaucluse)
 
I admit, it is a little bit ambitious.
So it has to be safe, small (my car is small), human powered (I like physical challenge), low drag shaped, simple and as cheap as possible (<20,000$), able to operate at 400m depth (such depth is well beyond limits of exploration diving, covers a significant part of the oceans, works fine in weight/displacement ratio and seems to be just below a step change in engineering complexity)
 
FEATURES
-Dry 1 atm, 1 person
-human powered
-750L displacement
-low drag, K250 like shape, pressure hull 28" inch od 
-400m max operating depth 
-design and construction procedures following ABS rules
-a part is bolted to the other so a section can be added later on (a passenger for instance)
 
STATUS
-browsed psub mail list archives (this is precious, thanks!), got books, K250 drawings
-made all mass&volume and ABS/ASME type hull design calculations on MS excel,
-made a rough mock up in cardboard to determine the optimum space I need to pedal inside.
-settled down on the hull dimensions and characteristics
-started to find manufacturers, off the shelf components
-started to define the equipment I need in my garage
-next step is to get this into a CAD program
 
So until now I haven t spent a lot in this project, and moving forward scares me a bit. 
There are a few things I am not sure of, for the first steps of construction:
-I am not a welder, so will call a pro for the critical welds. But I would like to weld all non critical ones. 
Is it a reasonable objective? (like the stiffeners) 
-For the critical welds, can I do the grinding myself, or this is something the pro would typically do?
-Do I need a protective paint on the hull components, if building the hull together takes time?
 
Thanks for your comments,
I will try to go to the convention.
 
Antoine
(in Calgary)