[PSUBS-MAILIST] Islamorada Trip Report...

[Douglas Suhr via Personal_Submersibles]

Nice "rough cuts" Cliff! ~ Doug

On 8/8/17, Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
> Added two quick and dirty Youtube videos from 2017 Psubs Regatta.  The
> first is the 100 ft dive 5.3 miles offshore on Aug 3
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHqL49V0lMw and the second is a night dive
> in front of Doug's house  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDBw1ZOdKaI.
> Alec is working on a more comprehensive video of the Regatta.
>
> Regards
>
> Cliff
>
> On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 4:53 PM, Douglas Suhr via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
>> Greetings PSUBS group, Douglas Suhr here to share my take on the 4-day
>> sub operation we just completed in Islamorada, FL (July 31st, August
>> 1-3).
>>
>> Wow, what a whirlwind! So July 31st was really an arrival / setup day
>> with August 1-3 being true operational days. Though it was unfortunate
>> that Alec wasn't able to make it with Shackleton, we had our hands
>> full with Cliff's R-300. Without Shackleton, we also had enough time
>> to get Snoopy set up and lowered into the canal for some basic diving.
>>
>> List of Crew: Dan Lance, Steve McQueen, Cliff Redus, Rick Maxwell,
>> River Dolfi, Mike Patterson, Doug, Sarah, Douglas Suhr.
>>
>> This was my first time meeting Dan Lance, a (retired) saturation diver
>> and commercial welder. What a pleasure to have him join us on this
>> operation. Dan is modest, but most willing to share his knowledge and
>> extensive experience with a newbie like me. So pleased to have chatted
>> with him in the Keys. During the towing of the R-300, Dan manned the
>> tow line and helped with comms.
>>
>> Steve McQueen and River Dolfi did awesome jobs as our frog men.
>> Filming, attaching / detaching davit and tow lines, etc. they were
>> both in and out of the water quite a bit (especially Steve). I think
>> River took a little jelly sting for the team. What troopers!
>>
>> Cliff and his assistant Rick are such a joy be around. Rick is one of
>> the friendliest people you'll ever meet (and even brought a gift for
>> the group: a watermelon, straight from Texas!). Cliff is always
>> willing to share his expertise (and sub, too) with anyone who'd like
>> to learn more. I know that between Dan Lance and Cliff, I learned more
>> than I can remember last week.
>>
>> Mike Patterson, mom, dad and myself were all just providing whatever
>> kind of "troop support" we could to Cliff and the R-300.
>>
>> River, Steve and Myself got in some dive time on Snoopy in the canal
>> (which was great), but I think the biggest accomplishment was getting
>> the R-300 out a ways into the ocean.
>>
>> Our Boston Whaler (a 25' boat with a single 250hp Yamaha) was able to
>> tow the R-300 out about 5 miles into the ocean (at about 4mph). We
>> were in radio communication with Cliff most of the time, though we did
>> suffer a few intermittent losses in comms. When we got to a spot about
>> 100 feet deep, we started to slow down a bit and at that point the tow
>> line hook (an admittedly cheap thing) let loose(!) so we decided that
>> we had reached our dive location. We switched from marine radio to OTS
>> and Cliff started down. Visibility was supurb! As Cliff neared the
>> bottom at 100 − 110 feet, he was still quite visible from the Whaler!
>> His 18 foot long R-300 looked to be about 3 inches long, but wow did
>> it ever stand out from the rest of the sandy bottom. Cliff spent about
>> an hour "flying" his sub, surfacing, diving and maneuvering about,
>> testing systems and observing the ocean around him. By the time Cliff
>> surfaced and we towed back to port Antigua, elapsed time stood at 4.5
>> / 5 hours (estimate). Cliff said that he stayed cool by the water
>> flowing over the sub's dome hatch while in tow. Upon returning I think
>> we were all ready to take a break, but everyone felt great
>> accomplishment with the mission.
>>
>> A couple of lessons I took away from the tow out: We need better tow
>> equipment (better line, hardware and maybe a quick release). Our boat
>> REALLY needs a GPS (still don't have one). Towing into waves isn't so
>> much a problem, but when towing with the waves, our tow line needs to
>> be measured so as to sustain the proper distance between tow vessel
>> and sub (otherwise the sub and boat are constantly slacking and then
>> jerking, stressing the tow line and making it difficult for boat and
>> sub to track straight).
>>
>> The devotion of our crew was amazing, even in the heat and the waves
>> everyone did their jobs. Managing even a small sub operation like this
>> is more work / effort than meets the eye, that's for sure. At dinner,
>> one of the main discussions revolved around a support vessel that can
>> carry a sub or two on board, eliminating the slow, time consuming tow
>> out to an ocean dive site. Dan Lance shared details on his support
>> vessel project, which is no doubt going to be a dream in terms of
>> logistics. Hopefully when said vessel is ready to sail, Dan will lend
>> its services to host a diving event! ~ Douglas S.
>>
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>