Correction on: Lake claims a dreamer and submarine innovator

[shawl@torchlake.com (Jonathan Shawl)]

Jonathan Shawl wrote:

> Traverse City Record Eagel         April 12, 1990

Correction needed on this one, it was the Detroit Free Press April 12, 1990
Sorry about that, oops.

> Lake claims a dreamer and submarine innovator
>
> INTERLOCHEN – Carl Hardwicke was a mechanical engineer with a dream, and
> with Gregory Hansen, his classmate from Michigan Technological
> University’s Class of 1984, he almost made it happen.
> But dream and dreamer perished Tuesday night in 40 feet of water at
> Green Lake, just down the shore from the word-famous music camp.
> Hansen, who escaped, was in fair condition in a Kalamazoo hospital on
> Wednesday night.
> The submarine Hardwicke died in was his brainchild, said Joyce Rix, who
> lived next door to Hansen in Warren.  It was a three-passenger,
> 8-foot-long, 3 ˝-ton recreational sub.  The craft, called the Sneaker
> 100, made its public debut in January at the Detroit Boat and Fishing
> Show at Cobo Hall.
> “They were two wonderful young men with a wonderful dream,” said Rix.
> In the last of several test dives – and before the eyes of Hardwicke’s
> parents, Roger and Jane Hardwicke – the craft apparently hit something
> on the lake bottom, (NOTE this was not comfirmed) said Grand Traverse
> County Sheriff Jack Canfield.
> “There was a rush of air and then a big bubble came up,” said Canfield.
> “Greg hit the surface.”
> Hansen, 27, severely cut (NOTE from the jagged edge of the imploded
> window) on the head, face and body,  was rushed by helicopter to Munson
> Medical Center in Traverse City and then to Bronson Methodist Hospital
> in Kalamazoo, where he was put into a decompression chamber used to
> treat victims of the effects of rapid changes in air or water pressure.
> The body of Hardwicke, 29, who lived in Grosse Pointe Park, was
> recovered by divers about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday after searchers located
> the submarine using an underwater video camera towed by a surface
> craft.  Divers hoped to raise the submarine today.
> Canfield said the Seaker’s Plexiglas nose cone was broken and the
> submarine could have flooded.  He said the sub may have hit a sunken log
> in the mud; (NOTE this was not comfirmed) an area resident said the lake
> bottom was littered with logs from 19th-Century timbering.
> Hansen once called Seaker 100 “a high-dollar toy,” and admitted that at
> $100,000 it wasn’t affordable for everyone.  Promotional literature for
> Hardwicke and Hansen’s company, called H2O Submersibles, said it could
> be used for recreation, tourism, research, salvage, search and rescue
> and inspection maintenance.
> A neighbor of the Hardwickes said that the pair had orders for two or
> three craft after they displayed the prototype at the Detroit Boat Show
> in January.
> James Major, an Onekama charterboat captain, remembers chatting with
> Hansen at the show.  “He was quite excited about it and thought that
> everybody in the world ought to have one.”
> The company’s headquarters is in a small brick and cinder block
> commercial building on Stephens Road in Warren.  The office was dark and
> empty Wednesday and a black and white baseball jacket hung just inside
> the door.
> Chris Malone, manager of the Barefoot Grass lawn service also located in
> the building, said Hansen often worked late on the submarine.  “He had
> real high hopes for it.  They had gotten a good response down at the
> boat show.”
> Malone said the last time he saw Hansen and the sub was Saturday when he
> was loading it on a trailer behind a truck.  “It’s a shame.  It looked
> like the thing would be a lot of fun.”
> In addition to his parents, Hardwicke, is survived by a sister, Mary
> Beth, a brother, Scott, a grandmother, Bernice Hardwicke Baad, and a
> grandfather, Leslie  Croswell.
> His funeral will be at 11a.m. Friday at the Reynolds-Jonkhoff Funeral
> Home in Traverse City, Visitation will be from 7 to 9 tonight at the
> funeral home.  The body will be cremated.  The family asks that
> memorials be directed either to the Nature Conservancy, 2840 E. Grand
> River, east Lansing, 48823 or to the Michigan Loon Preservation
> Association, c/o Michigan Audubon Society, 409 E. Avenue Kalamazoo,
> 49007.
>
> Submitted by Jon Shawl to the Psub group.