Re: Hooray (ignore this message unless you want to stick a forkin your eye)

[Phil Nuytten <72020.572@compuserve.com>]

Hi, Vance!
        Just had a quick peek at the Psub postings 'fore I run out the door
to catch a plane ( Calgary conference-PN, Joe MacInnis, Greg Stemm - 
talking about underater technolgy/archaeology . . .in Calgary???) Re diving
in the great white north:
In 1981, I made the first sub (Wasp) dive on the 'Breadalbane' about 120
miles from the magnetic north pole - water depth about 100 meters, water
teperature 28.4 degrees (F) only reason it was still liquid was because of
the salt! Did 6 and a half hour bottom time. then had to quit 'cause wools
were freezing to the inside of the hull - dove thru' 8 feet of ice- so had
to come back to what looked like a bright little postage stamp from the
bottom - the ice hole had partially re-frozen and was filled with brash ice
- had to chip, pull, wiggle, thrust, chip, thrust, etc., to get out - like
climbing out of a marguerita! My company (Can-Dive) had all of the rig
contracts in the high Arctic from 1975 thru' 1986/87 . . .we averaged more
than three thousand exposures per season in the Beaufort Sea ( North Slope
area) mostly air, but hundred of Heo2 and quite a few sats . .all at 28 to
29 degrees and most thru ice!
        We did a fair bit of sub work also - Sea Otter, for example did a
lot of freezing water dives. One to locate a Sunken ferry (Wiliam Carson)
was a ten hour BT and the sub developed 1/2 an inch of ice all over the
inside of the exposed hull - then the pilot, Richard Otter, got stuck in
the wreckage . . hours to jockey free, with teeth chattering, hoping
nothing would stop functioning 'cause of the temperature!  Hmmm, lot of
fun, this commercial sub diving!!

Regards,
Phil Nuytten