[PSUBS-MAILIST] First Launch

[Smyth, Alec]

That's a really different and clean looking 350, congrats! I suspect she will be far more efficient on surface runs or tows, which is a huge plus. I'm looking forward to dive reports, and am green with envy that you have a sub right on the ocean, whereas in these parts we're limited to muddy puddles, and often man-made puddles at that. Congrats on a super job, and thanks for the detailed project page.

Best,

Alec

From: Personal_Submersibles [mailto:personal_submersibles-bounces at psubs.org] On Behalf Of James Frankland
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 5:07 AM
To: personal_submersibles at psubs.org; member-forum at psubs.org
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] First Launch

Hi All,

I got my boat in the water at the weekend for the first time.  Put the pictures up here.

http://www.guernseysubmarine.com/operations.htm

I didnt get any leaks at all, so i was super happy.  I wasnt really expecting to try and dive and would have been happy with just no leaks and a float test, but everything worked fine, so i gave it a go.  Unfortunately i didnt have enough lead.  I added 90KG (198lb) of lead, but it still wouldnt go down.  What i didnt mention on the website was that i was forced to stop testing because the harbour master came along to say that they had had an anonymous phone call from some bloody do-gooder who pointed out that we were using the comercial area of the harbour and didnt have a proper comercial dive team, which is officially a legal requirement.  So even though i had full permission from the harbour, i was forced to stop on a technicality.  They think it was some missery that has the hump on with harbour and just wanted to be awkward.  Shame because I was about to load a pile of anchor chain into the boat to get me more weight.

The boat did seem to be very light at the back and i kept squirting air into the forward tank to level it out.  Thinking about it, i suspect that the forward tank was settling into the correct position and it was the aft tank that was riding high.  Just need to get some weight at the back.  I had a slight list to port as well which i've no idea where that came from.  Again i will trim that up.

Anyway, i was really pleased with how it went on my first day.  Im meeting my divers tonight who took a load of underwater pics apparently, so i will see how they look later.  Might put some on the web if they are any good.

Kind Regards
James




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