Greetings psubs community, Douglas Suhr here! After encountering some difficulty uploading photos to the psubs website, I finally figured it out (with some help from Mr. Wallace!). The two sets of submersible photos I uploaded should now be available for all to view under my name on the psubs website project list. I encourage you all to view the photos at your convenience, for they are very interesting pictures! I do want to apologize in advance because the pictures may appear a bit hazy, and some of them aren't quite level. I wasn't using the best camera for the job, and, well, I'm just not a good photographer (yet!). But anyway, I figured that
Now the second set of photos, pertaining to the "Mermaid II," are pretty self-explainitory. But the first set is what I'm most interested in learning more about. This small vessel, which I am speculating might be an early K-250, has been sitting down in Marathon Florida for many years. Until recently, it has been serving as a "roadside billboard" right on A1A. About two years ago, we failed to locate it on our annual Easter Keys trip. This year, I insisted that we find it once again, and find it we did! As it turns out, the owner had tucked it away behind his building down there. After doing a little sleuthing around, we located the little vessel and snapped some pictures of it. As the photos illustrate, it is in very rough shape from years of neglect and years of the torturous Keys climate. The salt-water air has really started to eat away at the pressure hull, and the sun has badly hazed the dome hatch. I peeked in the forward bottom viewport to see what I could see inside the hull, and all I could really make out was what looked to be a chair of some sort. A few years back, when the sub was still "on display" roadside, we made an attempt to contact the owner, but it didn't go over so well. We got as close as talking to who I can only assume was the wife of the owner (an older lady). She said something like, "He will never sell that thing." As I recall we had not inquired about purchasing the vessel specifically, more so we just wanted to know a little more about its history. Her immediate and firm response made me think that others must have inquired about purchasing it over the years. Now the more I think about this, I kind of remember running across a photo of this submersible online somewhere (maybe on psubs?). The photo must have been older because the submersible looked newer, and what appeared to be a protest decal was visible on the forward ballast hood. As I recall, it had the word "sanctuary" written on it, with a circle around it and a diagonal line drawn through it as to assert the message "no sanctuary." Am I crazy, or does anyone else remember a photo like this? Whatever the case, I am very curious about this vessel. Is it a Kittredge designed and or built vessel? It does bare quite a resemblance to the K-250 design, with a major exception being the skids or keels which on this vessel are very tall and trapezoidal in shape, unlike the low profile K-250/UEM rounded-in-the-front keels. Could someone have been inspired by a Kittredge sub and simply built to their own design with those looks in mind? I feel that this little guy definitely merits a more thorough investigation! ~ Douglas S.