Re: Drop Weights

["Alan D. Secor" <secor@btv.ibm.com>]

My sub has about 400 lbs of drop weights but are for emergency use only...
ie a failure of the ballast tanks.  The weights can be dropped 
sequentially
100 lbs at a time to "rock the sub" if it gets stuck in the muck.

Al

> Fellow Boaters,
> 
> In all this discussion of ballast tankage, I haven't seen much mention of
> Drop Weights. Is anybody using any form of expendable ballast? This is one
> option available to us as pleasure boaters that's not available to the
> average SSBN, since we can go back home between dives. A Drop Weight allows
> you to dive with a bubble in the ballast tank (or under your canopy), and
> save that much compressed air to get home. Multiple independently releasable
> Drop Weights allow you to take home big payloads of Gold Doubloons. As Al
> says, though, it requires some fine tuning, and a good idea of how deep
> you're going before you start. The task is a bit easier if you're clever
> enough to come up with a shot hopper sort of device that dribbles out bits
> of weight. :-o Joe
> 
> 
> 

--
Alan D. Secor
e-mail: secor@btv.ibm.com