[PSUBS-MAILIST] dive report Gamma

Sat Jul 25 23:49:53 EDT 2015

Hi all,

Shelley and I met Hank at Kootenay Lake to photo and video his modified
Gamma submarine.  Unfortunately, the visibility was only about 4-5 feet, 6
feet at the depth of 38 feet.  We had great plans for recording the sub ops
and went over diver hand signals and what to expect.  All for not and we
just did as well as we could under the conditions available.  Underwater
voice communications would have been most helpful.

On the way out we tried hanging onto the front of the submarine at first,
but this proved too difficult for the distance required at speed.  Shelley
was holding one of the GoPro cameras and the lanyard slipped from her wrist
and the camera went to the bottom.  We spent the next 10 minutes doing a
search and recovery dive trying to find this $600 new purchase.  As what
usually happens when we do a search and recovery dive, Shelley found it.  We
were back in business.  I still had the other GoPro strapped to my head.  We
then tied a couple of loops in the trailing dive safety float line and this
worked out much better.  We felt that we could almost water ski behind this
boat.  

When we arrived over the 30 foot contour we decided to submerge and see what
we could do.  We descended a bit faster than Hank in the sub and lost sight
of him when more than 10 feet away.  We settled on the bottom and then Hank
dropped out of the sky right beside us... like inches away.  All good.  We
carried on with the dive as best we could.  You can see from the photos in
the Psubs.org Event photos,
http://www.psubs.org/projects/1403928245/gammakootenaylakejul15/, that the
viz was pathetic.  We did not go deeper due to the bottom being in the way
without being towed quite a long way off shore.  As it was, the built-in
flash in the camera went off due to the low light, causing too much back
scatter.  We really wanted to stay shallow so that we could use available
light, but such is the way of things.  

We were towed back to the launch ramp and after changing out of our dive
gear I went out with Hank as a passenger.  We travelled further along the
surface to the 100 foot contour where we submerged and descended to the
bottom.  I only had my point-and-shoot camera, not a GoPro for this dive
(don't know why), and took a few pics out the dome.  After satiating
ourselves with the awesome views of the mud bottom we surfaced and returned
to the launch ramp.

Hank's submarine is a most excellent vehicle.  It has enough room for two
occupants to comfortably enjoy the view out of the amazing front dome.  The
LED light bar lit the scene to what seemed like daylight.  The high level of
battery power allows for a long transit and also powers the onboard
compressor to refill the compressed air tanks enroute.  

Hank has mastered the launch and recovery tasks with his purpose built
trailer.  It is of sufficient length to launch the sub from most launch
ramps, but it also has a large dolly wheel so that the trailer can be
detached from the truck and submerged on a tow strap if necessary.  Hank
installed a cat walk and hand rail on the forward part of the trailer so
that he can easily detach the submarine from the trailer while he wears
chest-waders. This allows him to tie the sub to the dock and then park the
truck and trailer.  He can launch or recover the submarine himself in five
minutes with no other help or equipment needed.

It was a good time and the dive was good (Shelley and I do a lot of low viz
dives).  A better viz day in the spring or fall would have made a more
interesting photo shoot.  None the less, we had a good time.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Personal_Submersibles [mailto:personal_submersibles-bounces at psubs.org]
On Behalf Of hank pronk via Personal_Submersibles
Sent: July-23-15 5:09 AM
To: personal_submersibles at psubs.org
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] dive report

Hi all,
I went out to Kootenay Lake and did a dive with Tim and Shelly Novak
yesterday.  I met an engineer from Ontario, I showed him my killer light and
he said "why don't you pot the whole thing instead of oil filling"  Hmmm I
had no response, he also said they have potted LED's for use in chemical
environments.  I use a crystal clear casting resin for making electrical
penetrators.  Might be worth a try.
Hank
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