Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Buoy release

[vbra676539@aol.com]

The Cousteau Society is currently rebuilding Calypso, and to tell the truth I don't know whether the subs are in a museum or storage or what. I'm with you. It would be fun to see, and to go back to France. I notice they are still calling the sub the SP-350, so maybe the jump in depth was only 50 meters, or maybe 100. Either way, they never changed the number that I heard of.

 

The mercury wasn't ballast, it was cargo. There is a cylinder in the brow and one in the stern under the motor/pump hangers with a pump in between to shift weight foreward and aft for trim. There is also a sizeable trim tank inside for variable ballast, but no external tanks. They dove heavy with a pair of 50kilo pig iron weights, dropped one to get neutral and adjusted as needed with the vbt, then dropped the other weight to surface, pumping the vbt dry if the weather was bad (mostly to get the sub higher so the surface crew could see it).

 

The boat weighs four tons, give or take, and most of that is hull displacement, as there were only battery boxes and pumps and pipes outside under the fairings.

 

Vance


-----Original Message-----
From: ShellyDalg@aol.com
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Sent: Wed, Aug 12, 2009 1:39 pm
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Buoy release

Hi Vance I remember reading about them losing the first one during testing. Man ! what a bummer that would have been. I'm surprised it had no ribs. I read that they had to lay down in it. At 3/4 inch, I'm guessing that each tank head weighed about 1300 pounds or so. I wonder what the total displacement was. They used mercury for ballast didn't they? Must be nice to have that kind of a check book.

Isn't the sub on display in a museum in France? I'd sure like to see it. My wife is always trying to get me to go back there, so maybe it would be worth a trip. Sure would be nice to go visit Carsten and his crew and share a cold beer with them. That's not that far from France.  Frank D.

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