Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] R300 dive at Lake Amistad

As to the tow, it took about 15 minutes. Not sure on gasoline consumption nor the horsepower of the support boat. I did not have any trouble with the tow. I used the rudder to control the boat. Due to the shape of my boat, if I tow to fast, a bow wave forms and prevents me from seeing very well. The actual tow distance was 0.8 mile so that would make the speed a little over 3 mph. I used a 100 ft line because I can not reverse very fast and I did not want to drift into the support boat.

Cliff

Cliff Redus
Redus Engineering
USA Office: 830-663-6445
USA mobile: 830-931-1280
cliffordredus@sbcglobal.com

From: Jon Wallace <jonw@psubs.org>
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Sent: Tue, February 23, 2010 8:23:58 PM
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] R300 dive at Lake Amistad

Nice job, Cliff. I'll add the link to the web site when I have a chance.
Can you provide any info on the tow to the dive site? You said it was about a mile; how long did it take? How much gasoline chewed up by the towing vessel? Horsepower of the towing vessel? Any problems on your end...porpoising, weaving, etc.

Jon

Cliff Redus wrote:
> Over the weekend, I took my boat out to Lake Amistad near Del Rio Tx. Nine dives were completed and we qualified two new pilots. As I have not completed the max depth unmanned test, the deepest dive was 60 ft. As it was a cold, windy and overcast day, the visibility was not all that great. The dive site was about a mile from the boat ramp so we towed the psub over to the dive site to conserve batteries. The lake was a bit choppy.
> Things got a little interesting on the last dive in which we launched off a anchored 23 ft fishing boat. I had a bow line on the psub as a safety precaution. While I was on the bottom, the wind came up and caused the support boat to loose it anchor and begin dragging me across the bottom. At that time I decided to ascend to see what was going on. At about 36 ft, the psub stopped ascending. I kept adding more and more air to the VBT and still the boat would not resume it ascent. I then started blowing air into my MBT which did the trick and I surfaced. Upon surfacing, I was very surprised to see that the wind had blown the tethered boats one mile down wind. The reason the ascent was halted was that when the psub got off the bottom, the support boat really started to pick up speed and psub wings and control surfaces were holding it in a horizontal glide pattern. My take away lesson was not to dive the boat tethered to another boat in windy conditions. All in all, it was a fun day.
> Attached is YouTube link of the dive http://www.youtube.com/user/drRedus#p/a/u/0/6O-PeYlt26c Cliff

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