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Re: Trolling Motors
After a couple of Psubs Emails I am getting the picture of what is going
on here. Little slow... I have a couple of comments. First, I personally
do not think that anyone should build a sub that can not take the change in
weight of a flooded trolling motor compartment. All subs should carry some
form of compressed air that can be used for blowing what might be only an
emergency tank or tanks. This source of air should be manually controled
with a very reliable valve. My sub has two scuba tanks, two regulators,
and two valves used for ballast blowing. I sometimes use an electric
solonoid valve for giving a "shot" of air to the tanks but I also have two
manual valve with much redundency. One shot of air should be able to take
care of a motor housing flooding. An alternate approach would be to also
use drop weights. I have around 200 pounds of drop weight. Now, my drop
weight system has 3 switches that control two seperate drop weights. One
is the ARM switch and has a switch cover to prevent accidents. The other
two switches are FORWARD and AFT. I do have to have electrical power for
this system but this is NOT my primary system. The air system is.
My second point is; you need somebody that can go and pick you up if
you surface and have no propulsion. They at least need to know where you
are and what kind of reserves you have. Two-way communications is
desirable also.
Now, I am not commenting on the electrical shock danger here from
exposing bare wire to outside water. However if the case of the motor is
well grounded to the frame of the sub this "may" be a minimal concern.
Gary Boucher
At 09:35 AM 10/25/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Gary Boucher wrote:
>> I am curious here. Could someone tell me how the failure of a trolling
>>motor at depth be considered fatal? I keep seeing these posts that refer
>>to danger and risk etc. Is this with a semi-dry sub? Why would blowing a
>>seal be so dangerous?
>
>Thank you. That's what I was wondering: Umm, gee - it's just the motor.
>What's the big deal? So, he stops going. I don't see how that's anything
>but annoying and disappointing, unless he's trolled out farther than he can
>swim back when the motor conks out, and there's nobody around to help...
>
>By the way, Martin: very clever. ("Trolling" for emotional responses...) :-)
>
>Martin Sanderse wrote: -----
>>Albert Long wrote:
>>> All I know about this is, don has been using the evinrude for some time
now
>>> at depths of 700 ft. !!! <snip>
>>> I guess you either try it or you don't... I'm going to try it, when I do I
>>> will let you know how it works for me,
>
>>On the risk that Albert is just trolling us for emotional responses:
>>
>>How about testing it without risking your health first? OK guys, let's
>>think of a good
>>testing method before we have a long post-mortem discussion. That way if
>>he wants to
>>kill himself his family can't say he didn't know how to test the thing.
> ------
>
>
>---------
>David
>buchner@wcta.net
>http://customer.wcta.net/buchner
>Osage MN USA
>
>
>