Hugh You figure that it is much easier to recharge electrically than with high pressure air... but wouldn't a diesel-electric sub, with it's own high-pressure air compressor, have both options: (a) recharging the battery, and (b) recharging the high-pressure air storage? The option to manually pump air into the ballast tanks was only meant for displacing residual water after blowing the tanks using high-pressure air to get the boat to (barely) surface, with casing still awash. I will have to use outside air (trough an induction pipe, regardless of hatch being open or closed) for any one of the following purposes: manual air pump for ballast tanks, diesel engine, air compressor, or electric fan ventilation of the boat. However, the electric driven pump you described sounds very interesting, and I could use something of that capacity to bail out the "bath tub" when cruising at surface with open hatch in rough weather, ref attached image. This bath tub is to be isolated from the rest of the sub's interior whenever hatch is open (this is a safety measure due to an extreme low freeboard). Your point about "use up my scrubber by huffing and puffing for 10 minutes of manual pumping" is something I forgot to consider. I also appreciated your proposed exercise of inflating a rubber pontoon boat using my air pump design. Thanks a lot! You also asked me what the water volume of my ballast will be, well, I don't know! I'm using a bottom-up design approach, and at this stage I am evaluating various sub-systems and collecting weights and volumes that eventually will help me to determine my final volumes and weights. Actually, I do not even know if it's feasible to design and build a 30 ft. diesel-electric submarine, yet. Best regards, Jens Laland
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