[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca

Sat Jun 6 21:58:30 EDT 2015

Yep, Al has the boat and he has experience too.  Experience in the deep 
water testing operation, and experience in hauling up hand over hand from 
more feet then he or I would like to do again.

Seneca Lake in New York state is a great place to dive.  Deep and clear with 
a great ramp on the southern end.  It's only a few miles off the ramp to get 
to five hundred feet of depth.

Great report Alec,  Seneca lake is so deep that the water doesn't seem to 
mix up much.  What's at the bottom and cold, stays down there.  Probably the 
biggest drawback to that lake is that it's quite cold year around.
If you have plans to get up there again let me know.  Maybe I'll head up 
that way.

Dan H.

-----Original Message----- 
From: Al Secor via Personal_Submersibles
Sent: Friday, June 05, 2015 11:28 PM
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca

Tim,

It's basically a 20' 150 hp outboard...good for towing the sub out to the 
dive site.  I have 2 other larger boats but they aren't as easily towed on 
the highway.
I provided support for Persistence, Dan H's K-350 sub when we did the deep 
test for that.

Al Secor

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 6/5/15, T Novak via Personal_Submersibles 
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca
To: "'Personal Submersibles General Discussion'" 
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
Date: Friday, June 5, 2015, 11:11 PM

What kind of surface
support boat do you have, Al?  Could you post a photo?
Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Personal_Submersibles [mailto:personal_submersibles-bounces at psubs.org]
On Behalf Of Al Secor via
Personal_Submersibles
Sent: June-05-15 7:19
PM
To: Personal Submersibles General
Discussion
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive
report: Snoopy at Seneca

FWIW, my boat is available for any surface
support for deep tests and I can
also
provide guidance to local wrecks in Seneca if anyone else
is
interested.
I also have a
scuba compressor for air fills.

Al Secor

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 6/5/15, swaters at waters-ks.com
via Personal_Submersibles
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
wrote:

  Subject: Re:
[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca
  To: "Personal Submersibles General
Discussion"
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
  Date: Friday, June 5, 2015, 9:20 PM

  Alec,So

cool. I wish I could of made it! Can't wait to see the
video.Thanks,Scott
Waters

  Sent from my U.S.

Cellular® Smartphone

-------- Original message
  --------
  From: Alec Smyth via

Personal_Submersibles
  <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
  Date:06/05/2015  5:16 PM  (GMT-06:00)
  To: Personal Submersibles General
Discussion
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
  Cc:

Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report:

Snoopy at Seneca

Hello
  friends,
  I just got
back
  from a dive trip to Seneca with Dan
Lance and thought  I'd share how it
went. This was supposed to be a two sub  trip
with Scott Waters, but
unfortunately a
business  emergency intervened and it ended up being
just
Snoopy.
  On the way
up
  the weather was terrible, with driving
rain so heavy I could  barely see
the lines
on the road. It had been raining  heavily for several
days
previously. Three times there were
emergency announcements about floods,
large
hail, and  damaging winds, and the closer I got the harder
it rained.
  The problem with all that rain
is that in your typical lake,  the runoff
ruins visibility for weeks. That is what
happened  last year when
Trustworthy and
Snoopy rendezvoused at  Summersville Lake, and it looked
very much like this would  be a repeat.
I'm happy to say Seneca must be
rain-proof,  because the deluge only reduced
the visibility in the top
fifty feet or so,
and even those were clearer than most  lakes.
  Here's a
  few things we
learned:
  1) Of props and

shroudsThe stern thruster speed control was dead  on
arrival, although I
had tested it
successfully before  leaving. I opened up the enclosure,
pressed down all the  spade connectors, and
found it now worked - so
attributed  the
issue to road bumps. However, it died within a minute on
the first dive. I had a spare speed controller,
so switched  it out.  The
replacement died
within five minutes on the second dive.

This time at least the cause was obvious, the prop was
jammed by weeds.
The current Minnkota props
have a little  twist at the end of the blades,
and Snoopy's shroud is  made with almost
no clearance. The little twist to
the
blade  tip causes any object coming between prop and shroud
to jam
tight, and had already smoked one
controller during the  convention in the
Keys. I'm going to put the prop on the
lathe and take off the tips to
eliminate the
pinching effect  and to reduce the amperage draw a little
so
the motor goes  lighter on the speed
controller. By the way, the speed
controller
was protected by a fuse rated a little below the
controller spec
current draw, so perhaps
those specs are  optimistic. Anyway, as a result of
the double failure all of  our dives were done
on just the side thrusters
because I was
out of spare speed controllers. Lesson for next sub:
Design
the electrical system with a
controller bypass, so I can  operate thrusters
with simple on/off switches if a speed
controller fails. They're
electronic,
they will  fail.
  2) Of air
  bubbles in compensation oil

Snoopy is now routinely diving deep
  (250
ft) and this has showed up a puzzling issue with the
thrusters. They
were feeble during dives,
one died  altogether on one dive, and they kept
coming up leaking oil.
  At
first we thought the seals were failing, perhaps due to
some chemical
incompatibility. We found
suitable seals at an  Amish farm supply store that
sold things like tractor spares  (viva
trolling motor simplicity!) When I
disconnected the  bladder hose I got quite
well sprayed with oil. The motor
turned out
to be pressurized.  Previously, I thought if one had a
small
quantity of air left in the system it
would not be an  issue so long as the
compression volume of that air could be
handled by the flexibility of the
hose (aka
compensation
  bladder.) Wrong. I now think
what happens is that if the  dive exceeds the
pressure rating of the shaft seal and there
is a bubble of any size, you
will get water
added to the oil  and the bubble stores the pressure.
Upon
surfacing,  the bubble squeezes oil
and water back out until the  pressure
in
the motor falls to the "cracking  pressure" of
the seal. Thus, you get an
oil leak even
though the seals are fine. Lesson: Zero tolerance with
oil
bubbles, even a small bubble is
unacceptable if you are  diving deep. I'm
going to put set screws on the motor  caps so
I can get rid of the bubbles
more
easily.
  3) An easy way
  to
add buoyancySnoopy's buoyancy is adjusted  by placing
trawl floats in
PVC tubes. On one occasion,
the  oncoming passenger's weight required the
addition of  just one float (i.e. the new guy
weighed seven pounds more
than the one
getting off). The support diver wasn't  suited up and
the water
was 42 degrees, so I just pushed
a  float under the lip of the forward MBT.
It worked like a  charm, and the float even
stayed in place throughout the
tow  back to
the ramp. Lesson: You can easily add a few floats  for
buoyancy
on a standard K sub, no special
tubes  required.
  Most of our
  dives were along a very steep incline, not
quite a wall but  more like a
series of
ledges and very steep slopes. Between  the steep terrain
and the
good visibility, the K250 dome for
once offered a really good view. We
typically made our way  down the slopes using
very slightly negative
buoyancy,  trailing
the back corner of a skid on the slope. Looking  aft,
you could see a zigzagging trail of silt
hanging  motionless in the water
and
tracing our path. The sub  compresses with depth, so
slightly positive
buoyancy at the  surface
turned into slightly negative at depth, but  we're
speaking of just a couple of pounds and not
anything that caused
difficulty. In fact at
one point we  stopped dead in the water four or five
feet above a flat  bottom for about five
minutes, just waiting for a
pre-arranged
touch-point call on comms. The sub didn't  rise or sink
an
inch, she just hung there completely
immobile for five minutes. At about
140 feet
the visibility  would improve significantly, and the water
changed
from  green to blue. It looked like
ocean instead of lake water.
  I'll post
a video, but that'll take a few days to  put together.
The only
"incidents" we had were
a  cold bath we took when we closed the hatch over a
corner of  the crew's shirt, and when we
got hooked on a log at 220  feet -
fortunately reversing got us right off  it.

  Best,

Alec

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