A few days ago I went to my local aqua jet cutting facility, to check out a rumor that they had cut a hatch for a submarine that was in Hope, Idaho. I hit the mother load, sorta speak on submarine fabrication. The owner wasn't there, so while I waited for him I talking with his lead machine operator John Reagan. John as it turns out, is the brother of Bruce Reagan, who was the owner of Workboats Northwest of Seattle, Washington, now Northwind Marine, that built the first two Voyager 48 passenger tourist subs. John Reagan was one of the lead guys in building those two subs along with Sam Brown. I had met with Sam Brown in the past and had gotten loads of great data. As it turns out Sam Brown comes over to visit with John from time to time here in north Idaho. So I'll be catching up with him again soon. I know a hell of a lot more about submarines then I did when I first met with him, so it should be very interesting.
So what I'm getting at is that I learned loads of data about the Voyager subs and the the materials used on them. I will share that data when I get a chance to sift through it. One item in regards to sub accidents was a story about one of the Voyager subs having what I believe was a hydrogen explosion from the off gassing of the non sealed type lead acid batteries. This was because they forgot to turn the exhaust blower on in the sub while they charged the batteries over night. There were no passengers on board just maybe one or two crewman. No one was killed and the sub I believe was repaired. The explosion was just in the battery compartment that runs under the whole floor. The floor was pushed up rapidly and injured one or two of the crewmen's legs. John was working while we talked, so I'm sure some details are missing. I will talk with him again soon. I think a read some thing about this accident on the US submarines site a while back.
Another tourist sub accident he told me about, was when one tried to surface and hit either the tender boat or a fishing boat. No body was seriously injured. I'll get more details on that story as well. I've been on one of the Atlantis tourist subs in Kona, Hawaii and with all they do to come to the surface safely, I don't know how they could of messed up that badly.
Best Regards,
Brent Hartwig
"When the paperwork weighs as much as the submarine, you're done."
Patrick Lahey, a Vero Beach underwater consultant.
From: "Paul Kreemer" <paulkreemer@gmail.com>
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Welding Revisited
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:24:30 -0700
Are there any other PSUB accidents that anyone knows of? Thankfully we have only that one Michigan accident, but I wonder if that's really the case. Busby lists a number of incidents in his book but I think they're all commercial or military.
Hull integrity, design, welds, materials are obviously crucial, but does anyone know of an accident caused by the metal hull failure? Looking at the historical record, almost all small sub accidents are from entanglement or collision.
Paul