[PSUBS-MAILIST] Sat Dive

[James Frankland via Personal_Submersibles]

Hi All,

I did a day of diving on Sat.   My brother towed me round to a nice bay the
other side of the harbour.  The dives themselves were excellent if fairly
eventless.  Got to a depth of 10m.  My new motor controls worked a charm.
This is obviously how the K boats are supposed to be driven.  I had the
ballast just right this time and I could drive up and down on the rotating
motors.

However, the issue of the day was the tow.  What a nightmare.  I had welded
2 rings onto the front of each battery pod and rigged a long line between
the two.  Then had a main tow rope attached to that.  The idea was to pull
it from the bottom and at both sides.  This was a complete failure as the
main line slipped around to one side and my brother had real difficulty
pulling me sideways.  We were going across the mouth of the main harbour
and because of the incorrect tow line, we were going so slow that port
control had to radio a couple of commercial boats to wait for us.  Of
course I couldn't get out to adjust anything, nor could the boat, so we
just had to press on until we got there.  It was extremely unpleasant as I
was being crashed about sideways while trying to breath through the snorkel.

The way back was a lot better as we rigged the tow line to the forward
rail, something I didn't want to do.  Anyway, it towed a lot better and did
not damage the rail mount. I have some video of the way back as I was able
to film.  On the way there I was too busy hanging on.

We left earlier than intended in order to give us plenty of time to get
back, and because the tow back was better, got back too early.  I had to
tie to a mooring buoy and wait.  The wind got up and I had sit with the
hatch locked for an hour and a half waiting for the marina gate to open.  I
was worried I wouldn't be able to open the hatch to release the line, but
as it turned out, I just did it real quick and it was all ok.

I suppose with hindsight its pretty obvious that initial rope wasn't going
to work.

Lesson learnt.  Tow from the front bar.

Dives themselves were really good.  Got some good video etc which I will
post when I have edited it up.

pic of boat on tow on the way back.

Kind Regards
James


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