Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Sea Scouts project videos

[Jon Wallace <jonw@psubs.org>]

Hi Thierry,

I see you found a photo of the sub when it was in working condition.  
Any idea when that photo was taken?  Just judging by the front nose of 
the car on the left side, I'm guessing somewhere between 69 and 75.

I think Alan and Ian both have good points.  On the one hand, I think 
being honest with an assessment of the vessel's condition is appropriate 
even though there's the danger of "bursting your bubble".  On the other 
hand, almost nothing is impossible today with the tools and supplies 
available.  With enough effort and money, the sub can probably be 
brought back to "some" level of operation although at this point it's 
not at all clear what level that would be.  The real question remains, 
how much money is the Sea Scouts organization willing to invest 
financially to bring the sub back to working condition.

It seems to me your first order of work is to assess the condition of 
the hull.  If the cost of refurbishing the hull is beyond your budget, 
then there's no point in putting any effort into anything else such as 
replacing pipes, viewports, engine, etc.

1) Strip the interior of all piping and controls.
2) Strip the exterior of parts such as dive plans, droppable weights, etc.
2) Remove, measure, and document the thickness/diameter of viewports.
3) Remove all paint/rust scaling on the interior and exterior (sandblast?)
4) Use some means to take many measurements of hull thickness over the 
entire hull to determine the thinnest point.

With overall length and diameter measurements you have the ability to 
calculate what the subs working capabilities will be which will likely 
influence how much more work you want to put into it.  Since this is 
going to be a passenger carrying sub I would try to find a marine 
engineer to do calculations for you, but you could use the 
hull-calculator on PSUBS for a quick report.  The first thing I noticed 
is that there is no internal ribbing, which likely means even in new 
condition this was a shallow diving submersible.  The second thing I 
notice given the old photo when the sub was in working condition, is 
that it is huge.  That is going to present some logistic problems for 
the scouts in terms of dealing with the weight, and transportation.  I'm 
guessing your looking at something close to 7 or 8 tons and this isn't 
going to be able to be towed with the family SUV, and you're likely 
looking at launch and recovery via a crane.  Operational costs are 
definitely going to be higher than a K-250 or K350 sized submersible.

It seems worthwhile doing some initial refurbish work, determining the 
capabilities of the hull, and then deciding how much further you want to 
go with the project.  Even if the sub never dives again, I agree with 
Ian that there is value in the project.  At the very least, if you 
determine the sub can't dive again but can get the external part of the 
hull back into near-new condition you may be able to sell it to a 
museum.  That would be pretty cool to me.

Jon




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