I've been thinking of that buoy release Dean mentioned, and I like
it. He proposed a simple turned down wooden closet rod, with fishing line
wrapped around it's turned down middle section, and sealed up so it
doesn't get water logged.
My thought is to use something like that, and have it encased in a
two inch pipe sticking into the hull near the sub's top with a
welded bottom cap. The pipe ( of course ) will be connected to a ball
valve and to release the buoy, just open the ball valve and the buoy will
float up, unspooling the fishing line as it ascends. With a 2 inch
pipe/valve there is enough space to make a buoy a little more
sophisticated than just a closet rod. I was thinking along the lines of a
buoy with a light on top, and maybe an antenna and signal device built in,
about the size of a flashlight. The device can be turned on at the
beginning of each dive and stowed in it's release tube.
Like the dive lights in my dive planes, the batteries will be simple
"D" cells giving me easy access and cheap replacement, and no thru-hulls
or wiring to deal with. Just put fresh "D" cells in there when I dive and
turn them on when launching. If I will be going up and down all day, It's
real easy to just pull the dive lights out of the dive plane "wings", pop
in new batteries, and stuff the dive lights back into the wings. Same with
the buoy. I would expect the batteries in the buoy to last several days,
with just a low power LED for a beacon, and an intermittent signal sending
unit. The fishing line cable will need to be pretty small, but is not used
for leading a grapple hook down so only has to hold on to the buoy and
could be 1000 feet long with room to spare. Plus, It's cheap and easy to
replace the line during regular maintenance. Now, I won't be able to reel
it in from inside the sub, but I don't see that as being very necessary,
as a buoy release only happens when you're in serious trouble. Got any
thoughts on this ? Frank D.