[PSUBS-MAILIST] Islamorada Trip Report...

Wed Aug 9 08:38:21 EDT 2017

Hank, I agree egress at sea is the ultimate solution and I have been
thinking along these lines.  Operationally, I don't want to tow two
vehicles so if I went with the submersible garage/pontoon setup, it would
have to be small enough to trailer and  launch with the R300.  The down
side is a complete rebuild of the trailer. To bad you don't live in Texas,
you could knock this out in about a day!

Best Regards

Cliff

On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 7:08 AM, hank pronk via Personal_Submersibles <
personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

> It seems to me that the biggest issue to address is being able to get in
> and out of  the sub out at sea.  The towing speed is secondary to that.
> Karl Stanly made a rig from an old boat that seems to work well.  An
> extension of that idea would provide a stable platform as well as increase
> towing speed.   I think if the towing apparatus  could ballast down as well
> would be ideal.  The sub could simply pull into the garage and the support
> diver opens the valve to fully surface the garage and your away!   I know
> it all sounds so simple ;-)
> Hank
>
>
> On Tuesday, August 8, 2017, 9:50:52 PM MDT, Alan via Personal_Submersibles
> <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
>
> Thanks Cliff,
> I presume you shot some footage from your sub & this is the entrée!
> Nice & clear, you must have been pretty happy down there!
> After you mentioned air conditioning, I looked into peltier elements &
> air conditioning units. The peltier conditioners have only 25% the
> efficiency
> of a normal compression cycle system, but are really small & by reversing
> the polarity can act as heaters. A few of those peltier elements stuck to
> the hull
> with air channelled past them might be the way to go! Not sure what
> batteries you
> are using, but the new battery technologies on the way will make energy
> expenditure less of an issue!
> Do you have all 4 motors exhausting through one regulator? Couldn't see
> any
> air coming out of the motor seals so the pressure isn't building up too
> much
> when exhausting.
> Cheers Alan
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 9/08/2017, at 8:25 AM, 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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