Kittredge visit

[Ray.Keefer@Ebay.Sun.COM (Ray Keefer)]

Hi,

	I am back from my trip to the UK. On the way back I stopped in
Boston to visit our design facility (computers), visit my inlaws, and
visit George Kittredge. Since George Kittredge is a personal submarine
designer, builder and user I thought you might like some details of my
visit with George. All my measurements are guesstiments since I didn't 
have a tape measure with me.

	George lives in South Thomaston, Maine. To get to his place
go to the town of Rockland and head east on Hiway 73. One mile passed
the Transportation Museum (will be on left) you will get to George's house.
It is a white Victorian with a cyclon fence out front. The house is on
the right side of the Hiway with the driveway on the far side of the house.
There are several other houses on either side of the street.

	I wasn't sure exactly which house it was even with the discription
George gave me over the phone (207-594-7470). So I buzzed right passed it
and down to the cove. There Hiway 73 turns south and crosses a river.
Just accross the river on the left side, on the ocean side of the cove,
I noticed George's catamaran. The catarmaran was sitting on a carrage and 
track system that sloped up from the shore of the river side.
Sitting on it was a yellow K-600 submarine. I took a few photos from the 
road since I didn't want to tresspass on his property.

	Now that I knew it was for real I decided to try to find his house
again. I went back up the road and turned around at the Transportation
Museum. At exactly one mile I looked for the house that best fit the
discription that Kittredge gave me. There were no signs or placards
with the Kittrege Industries logo so I just pulled into the driveway
and hoped for the best.

	It was the correct driveway. George came out to greet me. I found
George to be friendly and intelligent. Not quite what my initial impressions 
from his video had lead me to expect.

	He drove me out to the sub I have previously stumbled across.
Out in front was the trailer he uses to transport the sub over land
with. Then he took me into his shed/workshop. In the work area of the
shop he has a partially completed sub. This model is going to have a diesel
engine in it. The rear portion of the sub seperates into two parts. The
rear part is the end-cap-dome and a short section of the hull. The
front part is the rest of the hull.

	With the rear section off the diesel engine can be mounted onto
an engine mount inside the rear of the hull. The rear section will be
bolted to the hull with bolts all arounnd the circumference of the
interior of the hull.  The bolts hold the two parts in compression just
like the hull will be once underwater the water pressure presses them
into compression.

	Then we went into the actually shop. More of an old garage then
then anything else. There George had several machines. One was a lathe that
must of had at least a two foot swing that George uses for cutting the
hatch seal groves into his hatches. In the shop he had a smaller latch,
milling machine, oxy-acetalene and arc welders and miscellanous machines.

	Then out to the sub. We had to climb a ladder to get to the deck of
the catarmaran. On the deck of the catarmaran was the sub. We took a cover
off the conning tower and opened the hatch. The front of the hatch was
held down with a bolt. This kept the hatch closed to the elements. One could
pass a pad lock though to keep kids out if necessary. In the back of the
hatch is a spring with helps lift the hatch'es weight.

	On each side of the sub is a electric motor that can be rotated
360 degrees on a horizontal axis. These motors are rotated to make the
sub either decend, ascend, go forward, or go backwards. Around these motors
is a anti-fouling cage. It is up this cage you climb to get above the
hatch. The hatch rim is only about six feet off the deck of the catarmaran
but you have to climb up the cage to get above it. Then you lower yourself
down inside the sub. 

	Roomy. A lot more room then I thought there might be. The conning
tower must of been at least two feet wide. The hull must of been three
feet across even with the internal ribbing. In the conning tower there are
four view ports. Each one was about five inches across. There was one
in front, one on each side, and one in the back. There is a fifth view
port in the hatch. The hatch is held down with four eyelets on the hatch
and four hook type bolts with their nuts screwing down on brackets on the
interior of the conning tower.

	In the hatch George is place a sonar transducer. He is experimenting
with a rotatable sonar transducer so you could rotate the sonar and get
a "view" of what is around the sub on a horzontal plane.

	You look out of the view ports by sitting on a seat that is 
position below the hatch about midline with the hull. From this seat your
head is just right to see out the view ports. You can even look down through
the forward hull out the seven inch viewport in the front hull.

	In the front hull are dual pressure guages, for depth control and
redundancy. Also air scrubber system, required by Lloyd's. Lloyd's
requires the capiblilty to sustain life for 72 hours, hince the air
scrubber is a necessary item. To the rear of the interior were three
scuba tanks and a large flood valve. Two of the scuba tanks are to
supply the operating air for the sub. The third tank is for emergancy
breathing and if necessary for bailing out of the sub once flooded with
the large valve.

	The rear had extra room to spare. Actually the whole hull had
room to spare. You can fold down the seat and lay down in to hull to look
out just the front window. In my estimation there is enough room for one
person to lay down and one to sit at the same time. Though after a while it
may be a bit cramped for two people.

	The ribs in the sub are about a foot apart.  Looked like 1/4 steel
ribs with a "T" cross section. The top of the tee was 2 or 3 inches.

	After looking at this sub George drove me to a boat builder
shop were he has a K-250 sub that he has been converting to a
human powered boat.  The four bladed propeller has the same diameter as
the hull and it is powered by bicycle pedals on a gear box which just
changes the direction of rotation. From the gear box is a shaft that
goes aft under the seat to the rear of the hull where a gear and chain
reduction gearing occurs. The chain reduction is like on a bike with
the gears about 4 - 5" in diameter and within 5 -6 " from each other. I
guess this arrangement allows for changing the gear reduction by
changing the gears.  Though not like on a ten speed with a shift lever.
You would have to physically take the gear off the shaft and fit on
another.

	George's previous runs with the human powered sub was with hand
activated cranks so I suspect this new arrangement will work better
since human legs supply more power then arms.

	I was in such rapture that it was only at this point that I remembered
my camera. I asked if I could take pictures and George said take as
many as I want. I took four of this sub. None of the interior though.
:( I did climb inside. Just as roomy as the K-600 but the ribs didn't
seem as massive. Hull could of been a bit narrower. The big difference
was the hatch. It is a big plexiglass bubble mounted to a metal hatch
ring.


	Then we went back to George's house. He showed me his web page that
one of his friends helped him set up. I now point to it in our Sources
page. Its URL is:

		http://www.midcoast.com/~kittredg/subsailor.html


	Honestly I think it needs to more details and I'll suggest such
to George when I follow up with a thank you letter. He is not a computer 
expert and just getting comfortable with the web. He is willing to learn
and was very interested in what I could show him. I showed him our 
Personal Submersible web page and he was impressed.

	Next we looked through his scrap book. He has bunches and bunches
of articles, ads.... One ad was a cigarette ad with his sub hanging
in the background. I remember seeing this one in my younger days!

	Since my time was running out and I had a five hour drive to Cape
Cod ahead of me I had to leave. I stopped by the K-600 and the catamaran 
on the way out town. I took a lot of pictures. If I can con someone to
scan them in when I get them back I'll try to put a few on the web page.

	You can contact George via the address and phone number on the
Sources page. The cost for his plans are also located there. I assure you
I get no kickback for this plug. I just point out these designs since they
do work, have been certified by the three major certification organisations
of the world, George has built 41 of his submarines and George still uses
his K-600 regulary.

Regards,
Ray