Jon,
Although the actual events of the Ft. Pierce convention
departed significantly from the published program, I think it was still a great
convention. I strongly doubt I (and many others) would have learned
nearly as much if things had gone according to plan.
I got to dive in a small sub, met some great people, and
picked up several things that directly affected my design. All this at
very reasonable cost. It was the best, most educational, and most fun
weekend I've had in years.
It's difficult for anyone who has not planned out-of-state
meetings to comprehend how involved it can become. Adding dive activities
to it really compounds the issue. Without going into the reasons, for
right now I cannot volunteer to undertake such a responsibility. I
wish I could, but it's doubtful I would even be able to attend one for the next
twelve months. Hopefully my circumstances will soon become more
flexible. In the meantime I hope others will step forward.
Best regards,
Jim
In a message dated 1/16/2011 12:40:32 P.M. Central Standard Time,
jonw@psubs.org writes:
Not
exactly the way I intended to spend my day today, but ok. I didn't
know that the incident with bionic guppy was festering in the minds of
people so let's go ahead and discuss it.
SUMMARY In Ft. Pierce,
the BIONIC GUPPY took on water through an open hatch and foundered.
The BG holds a pilot and two passengers. During the course of our
submarine diving operations that day, the support ship which was provided
to us free-of-charge developed operating problems in both engines.
The Captain of the support ship requested that the submarine be contacted
immediately to hook back up to the support ship so that we could head back
into the boat yard. The BG was currently diving underwater in about
15 feet of water approximately 100 feet from the support vessel with pilot
and two passengers and did not have operational underwater
communication. I ordered Ben Fritz (support diver) to immediately
swim to the BG, bang on the hull for an immediate surface (previously
agreed upon at our pre-dive meeting), and then order the BG to come back
to the support vessel. A small two-man dingy was sent with Ben for
support. Just as Ben reached the submarine, the Captain of the
support vessel made a decision to immediately return to the boat yard due
to the condition of the ships engines. While the support vessel did
tow the BG out to the dive site, the boat yard was also within operational
distance of the BG and the BG could easily return to the boat yard under
its own power. That is my direct observation since I was located on
the support vessel at the time. Since we were now headed back to the
boat yard, the rest of this incident AS I KNOW IT is based upon statements
provided to me by those who were there. None of us on the support
vessel witnessed the foundering of the BG. The individual statements
by those who were with the BG differ rather significantly in various
ways. However, general consensus shows that the BG began making it's
way back to the boat yard under its own power with Ben Fritz following
behind it. The water was shallow, no deeper than 15 feet, and very
warm under the July sun. The combination of the water temperature
and three occupants resulted in uncomfortable high temps within the sealed
submarine. One or both occupants requested that the BG pilot stop
and let them get out to ride in the dingy where it would be cooler.
The pilot obliged and during disembarkation of the passengers the balance
of BG shifted aft causing the vessel to pitch down by the aft, enough that
the conning tower (now open to let the passengers out) lowered to the
point that water began to enter the cabin. While the pilot hurried
the last passenger to get off the submarine, enough water had collected
within the cabin to cause it to become negatively buoyant. The pilot
was outside the submarine at the time to make room for the passengers to
get out, and tried to hold the hatch shut but as the sub descended due to
the weight of the water in the cabin the pilot could not hang on and had
to let go. The hatch opened again underwater allowing complete
flooding of the vessel. The vessel rested in approximately 8-10 feet
of water depending on the tide, approximately 25 feet from
shore.
Recovery was achieved by renting an air pump, opening some vents
on the underside of BIONIC GUPPY, and pumping in air to displace the water
inside. The hatch did not have a mechanism to secure it from
outside, so numerous vice grips were used to keep the hatch shut.
The recovery was severely hampered by some loose rags within the sub that
were used to wipe condensation off the viewports. Unknown to us, as
the water was being pumped out the rags were dragged by the outgoing water
and heavily wedged within a vent that prevented water from escaping.
Due to the angle of the sub on the bottom and the position of the vent, it
was impossible to unclog even with appropriate tools. A decision was
made by the divers to open the hatch and enter the vessel removing the
rags and any other loose material. Once that was accomplished, the
recovery was near text book and the sub was raised within a short
time. Recovery started at about 10am that morning and took the
entire day (about 8pm or so) due to the issue with the rags. Had the
rags not been in the sub, or stowed away, the recovery likely would have
been completed by noon at the latest.
Now, let me address
some of the non-event related statements made in David's email.
1)
David said, "It was put out that a club only forum discussion of this
mishap so as to determine what exactly led to this event would take
place by years end. I may have missed this discussion but have thus far
heard nothing."
I do not recall any such discussion. However,
on 7/26/10, David wrote me personally asking, "What if you were to make
use of a psub member only forum to openly discuss the events of the past
convention?"
Because we already had a member-only forum there was no
need for me to create a new one, so I responded back to David on the same
day saying, "There's no rule prohibiting anyone from discussing the events
of the convention, however I won't be participating in those
discussions. I am still gathering statements from various people so
I can publish a list of recommendations and requirements for future
conventions based upon the information and suggestions I receive.
Once that is published I think there will be lots to discuss."
I
felt my response was obvious enough that if David wanted to start a
discussion on the incident he was free to do so. I also stated the
same to others who had queried me about what we as-a-club were going to
publish, if anything. I said I would not be participating in
the discussion because at the time I was collecting statements from the
direct participants of the incident, as well as many observers, via
private email so that we could piece together an incident report for
release at some point in the future and wanted to remain a neutral so as
to not influence any responses that I got back from these
people.
2) David said, "To me it is disappointing to see that
rather than be transparent that some mistakes and laps of safety may have
taken place at this event, we as a group would rather completely forget it
happened and hence learn and share nothing. The next time we may not be so
fortunate. History has a way of repeating itself...it's best not to
ignore it."
As described above in #1, there was no attempt to hide
anything or keep anything from anyone. Not one person was ever
directed by myself to not discuss this topic or raise it on the mailing
list. I personally did not see a need to do so myself, and so I did
not. As I described on 7/26 to David privately, my intent was to
produce a list of recommendations and requirements for future conventions
and that those documents would naturally lead to a discussion of the
incident when they were released.
David is correct that mistakes
were made. Based upon the BG incident and suggestions from many
participants at Ft Pierce, I did take immediate action. On 7/29 I
sent a lengthy email to the member-only mailing list detailing the
difficulties of planning remote conventions from NH. Most of you
have no clue how close the Vancouver convention came to becoming nothing
more than agreeing to meet on some street corner and then deciding what to
do when we got there. Those kind of plans may be fine for a
impromptu weekend together with a couple of your sub-diving buddies, but
is not appropriate when people are traveling thousands of miles and
spending thousands of dollars to participate in an event. I was more
than hesitant to entertain plans for Ft. Pierce based upon the
difficulties encountered with Vancouver, but I was assured that I would
have to do nothing except provide high level guidance. Well, that
didn't happen. The primary coordinator did some initial
investigations and then became severely ill. That left me to once
again plan a remote convention alone from NH. In April/May
time-frame, I came within a keystroke of canceling Ft. Pierce because
the difficulty of planning it surpassed Vancouver. There was much
less information available online regarding potential facilities and there
was a huge runaround regarding diving. In retrospect, canceling Ft.
Pierce is exactly what I should have done but I continued on, thinking
that something was better than nothing. The result was probably the
worst planned event I have done and the blame for that rests squarely on
my shoulders and I apologize to those whom attended. This is why I
have committed to not repeating the same in the
future.
Additionally, I reviewed all the follow-ups and suggestions
that were sent to me privately by Ft. Pierce participants who were a
witness to the BG incident and created two documents for future sub-diving
events. The first is a "prelaunch checklist" which describes the
minimum condition and equipment a submarine must meet at any PSUBS
sponsored event before it is even allowed in the water. The second
document is a "predive checklist" which describes the minimum requirements
a submarine must meet at any PSUBS sponsored event, after the sub has
entered the water but before it is allowed to dive. I sent both of
these documents to the PSUBS Council for review before publishing, on
10/15/10. I did receive feedback on the documents by the end of
October, but then got busy myself with work and other issues. While
I intended for these documents to go out to members by the end of year, I
simply did not meet my own deadline.
Those documents will
definitely be published and all submarines in the future will have to
comply with those requirements. We will take input from our members
on the contents of the documents and potential changes, but not sacrifice
safety over convenience. Furthermore, my hope is that in the future
we will have "event officers" who will have the authority to prevent a sub
from diving as part of a PSUBS sponsored event if it does not meet minimum
requirements.
I think those of us in Ft. Pierce all recognized that we
need to make changes in the way we operate. There was no
disagreement about that. However, we also need to recognize that
such change takes time. This is a volunteer led organization and we
cannot force people we are not paying to produce answers for us in a
specific time frame. Most of us have jobs and/or other commitments
that also vie for our time. We have many consumers and less than a
handful of contributors in terms of leadership. If you want to see
things happen faster, better, then transition from a consumer to a
contributor.
Jon
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