I have been playing
with some of the systems on my boat in between work. This week, I had it
out to see how the mods worked. Below is an executive summary of the
dive. Visibility was not great at 3 ft and wind was blowing strong so
video is not great www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_xDXvNuCY but my
theory is any day you can get your boat in the water is good day.
Jon has added a link to this at my project site at www.psubs.org/projects/1237684922/r300submersible/
On October 22,
2009, the R300 was transported to Medina Lake by trailer to conduct a series
of test. There was a crew of 6. This was
the third open water dive of the boat. Several first were
accomplished, including the first operation of the new motorized ball valves
on the VBT with it’s new level sensor, new position sensor on the trim weight,
new manual depth gauge, new cabin overpressure valve, new hydraulic system,
expanded yaw movement to shorten turning radius, new MBT motorized balls
valves, and rebuild jet pump and motor mount to reduce vibration. The ballast
systems are now working very nicely. The noise level in the
boat is much less. The power consumption of the new hydraulic system is
much less. All the new sensors work great. As the water level in the
lake was down 48 ft from normal, lake was shallow. I did a test to see
that both my digital and manual depth gauges were in sync where I flooded the
MBT and then VBT and slowly descended. The gauges were both tacking
fine. I though I was in 20 ft of water so when the gauges read, 0, 2 ft,
4 ft, 6 ft and stopped changing, I looking around to try and figure out what
was going but could not see a thing. My son who was helping me got right
up to the viewport and motioned that I was on the bottom. It was a very
soft landing in mud so I did not feel the boat hit
bottom.
There
were however several issues that came out of the test. This was the first
launch and retrieval off a non concrete ramp. This turned out to be a
mistake. The front trailer wheel was too small for the rocky ramp and
bent. Also the ramp was too steep which caused the back of
the trailer to bury itself during launch which made it hard to get the boat
out far enough to float off. Also we used a buoy on a line
attached to the aft lifting lug as a safety feature to keep track of the boat
in poor visibility water. Right after lunch, the rope
fouled the jet pump while I was reversing which required an in-the-field tear
down and rebuild of the jet pump. After the jet pump repair was successfully
made, as the boat was being moved off the beach, the aluminum control arm on
the rudder broke which terminated the testing.
Action items before my next dive include, procedure changes so
no more launches off non concrete ramps and no more buoy lines for surface
maneuvering. Also I am going to fabricate a stronger control arm on my
jet pump yaw control. All-in-all, the dive was a great success and a lot
of fun. Now if I could just find some clear water to play in!
Great works are performed not by strength but by
perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
Cliff