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[PSUBS-MAILIST] UI 2011 Trip Report
Just back from the Marine Technology Society Underwater Intervention in
New Orleans after a less than smooth return home. Two flight
cancellations, four flight delays resulting in three hours waiting at
airport in New Orleans and six hours waiting in Newark NJ. Got a flight
to Boston because no flights to NH due to "lack of flight crew", so wife
has to drive 1.5 hours to come get me in Boston. Finally home at
11:30pm after starting out in New Orleans at 7am. Thank you Continental
Airlines for the wonderful day of travel. Next time I'll walk.
But back to submarines...met up with the following people (roughly in
order of appearance):
Dan Lance, Vance Bradley, Mike Caudle, Pete Hoffman (all psubbers)
Andy Goldstein (psubber and engineer for VideoRay)
Phil Nuytten - Nuytco Research and psubs contributor
Will Kohnen - MTSMUV director
Scott Cassell - Sea Wolves, Undersea Voyager Project
Stockton Rush - Ocean Gate (new owner of Antipodes)
Karl Stanley - Idabel owner
Don Liberatore - JSL pilot
Dave McGee - International Sub Race coordinator
Brett Fullerton - Deep Submergence Systems, US NAVY
Ben Miller - Southwest Research Institute
BIRNS Penetrators
Trelleborg (syntactic foam products)
Hy-Lok (Valves and Fittings)
Fisk Marine Insurance
Analox Sensor Technology (O2/CO2 sensors)
Had a great time meeting up with Mike, Vance, Dan, Phil, Pete, and Andy
again. It's always a pleasure to be in such great company. Thank you,
gentlemen!
Talked to Scott Cassell in the exhibition hall for a while and brought
each other up to date on various things. Scott joined us at the 2008
convention in Maine just before he officially began his Undersea Voyager
Project. He said his K-250 (great white) is about 99% completed and
he's hoping to use it this summer for some of his work. He has a new
website at www.underseavoyagerproject.org and is looking for volunteers
and financial support.
Stockton Rush is co-founder of Ocean Gate (opentheoceans.org) which
purchased Antipodes (see www.subdb.info). We talked at length about
various issues and he expressed interest in hosting a PSUBS convention
in Seattle Washington some time. He also has a home built K-350. We
agreed to stay in touch via email and see what we could work out.
Karl Stanley met a bunch of us standing around in the hall. I was
hoping to talk to him but had to be somewhere else at that same time so
only got to say hello. Vance did have a conversation with him and may
be able to fill us in on anything new happening in Roatan. I wanted to
invite Karl to dinner with us but didn't have his phone number and
unfortunately didn't see him again after our initial hall meeting.
Don Liberatore is (was?) chief pilot for the Johnson Sea-Link at Harbor
Branch. He helped set up our tour of Harbor Branch last August where we
got to crawl inside and out of that historic vehicle. Really nice guy
and they gave us a hell of a tour at Harbor Branch so I thanked him for
that.
Dave McGee is an executive director of the International Submarine Races
(www.isrsubrace.org) and unfortunately we did not have much time to talk
since he approached me between presentations. Not sure if Alec Smyth
might know Dave since Alec has attended many of those races. This years
ISR race is the last week of June. I will be emailing Dave to find out
more about his organization and to see if there is some way we can
interact with each other.
Will Kohnen and I (with Vance and Dan participating) spoke about getting
both groups (MTSMUV and PSUBS) involved with the SUBDB.INFO website as a
unified database for the non-military submersible market. If we can
work out an agreement, SUBDB.INFO ownership will be transferred to a
separate non-profit entity with a board of directors containing
representatives from both MTSMUV and PSUBS (to start with, and reps from
other entities who financially support the website). We will create
policies for the database that benefit all submersible groups in the
industry and operate it accordingly. Will and I also agree to continue
working with each other on other issues to the benefit of both groups.
Commercial Contacts
BIRNS is a supplier of penetrators and thru-hull electrical fittings. I
had attempted a business relationship with these folks a few years ago
but it just never got off the ground. While I'm more than happy with
SUBCONN as a supplier, it would be nice to have another contact with
different products. Talked to Miguel Camacho who assured me we should
be able to get something going, so I will follow up with this and see
where we get.
Trelleborg makes various products including supplying various grades of
syntactic foam. I think we can easily start a relationship with these
folks if anyone has a need for such material and making it yourself
(http://www.psubs.org/design/PDF/SyntacticFoam.pdf) is not feasible.
Nice people who seem like they would be eager to help us.
Hy-Lok (www.mvfprocesscontrols.com) manufactures stainless steel valves,
fittings, and tubing which can be used for various air controls or other
plumbing needs in our subs. I'll be following up with them to create an
account so we have a resource for such things.
Fisk Marine Insurance provides P&I, Liability, and other types of
insurance for among other things, submarines. I talked with these folks
for a while trying to understand various scenarios that they would
insure. While ABS certification will get you lower rates they do not
require such certification. For a small recreational submarine,
covering JUST liability, they estimated a rate of between $5k-10k (US)
per year. The rate depends upon many factors, how deep, location, etc,
but this may be a resource for those of you who need/want some level of
insurance for you vessel while diving.
Analox Sensor Technology (www.analox.net) gave a presentation on their
new O2/CO2 sensor (
http://www.analox.net/proddetail.php?productid=78&ref=19 ) which is
compact, has multiple alarm capabilities, a software interface to set
alarm points, and even provides data logging that you can download to a
PC/MAC via USB. At $1500 suggested retail it's a high end unit compared
to OxyCheq products, however it does combine analysis of two gases in
the same unit and has a nice LED display as well as the previously
mentioned functions. I did talk to their distributor and they showed me
a retail price of $1250. It looks like we'll be able to set up an
account with them and get a 30% discount for PSUB members. I'll be
talking to the distributor this week and have more info after that.
In conclusion, UI 2011 was a good informative event that is worth
attending if you can. From a PSUBS organization perspective it is a
good opportunity for us to reach out into the commercial and research
world and make connections we would not otherwise have available to us.
It's also a great opportunity for us to demonstrate we are a responsible
group and open to working with others. I'm looking forward to firming
up some of the contacts made this year and if any of them listed above
hold specific interest for you, contact me and let me know.
Jon
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