[PSUBS-MAILIST] VAST

[irox via Personal_Submersibles]

Hi Jon,

Life: Working hard to balance family life (wife and two daughters) and earning money,
with finding time to work on submarine projects.

The K250/VAST I picked up in Fresno, California.  I believe it may be the one that
was once owned by bobsdiveshop.com.  When Bob died (unrelated to the submarine)
Kittredge help the Bob's wife resell it locally.  I believe I bought from the son
of the second owner.  However the person I bought from didn't make good on their
promise to find and mail me all the paper work that belonged to it so I can't confirm
this.

I think the Connecticut one was in better shape. If I remember correctly, there where
only 3 VAST subs sold as K250s (The rest were VAST MKiiis), could the Maryland sub be
the third, or is it a VAST MKiii, or is it the Connecticut one?

Cheers,
 Ian.


-----Original Message-----
>From: Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
>Sent: Mar 22, 2017 5:01 AM
>To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] VAST
>
>Hi Ian,
>
>It has been a long time, how are you doing?  I am curious, is your VAST 
>from Connecticut?
>
>Jon
>
>
>On 3/22/2017 1:32 AM, irox via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
>> I was looking at buying a VAST (one of a few (3?) sold as a "K250" after VAST went under)
>> a while ago. Then Daniel Lance gave me a great piece of a advice: "Don't."  It was
>> cheaper and better to build a K250 from scratch then buy and refit/modernize as VAST.
>>
>> Much later I completely ignored his advice while having a minor mid-life issue and
>> bought one.  I consider it a submarine shaped piece of scrap metal with a trailer and
>> some lead (at least until it's restored).
>>
>> To deal with the issues of not being able to inspect certain parts of the hull, I
>> used an ultra-sonic thickness to determine if there is any significant corrosion.
>> This can be placed on the outside of the hull and reports the thickness of the material.
>>
>> Ultimately Daniel Lance was spot on with his advice and it would have been
>> easier to build or commission a K250 from plan instead.  Although there is something
>> to be said for having a K250 shaped piece of artwork/scrap in your garage.
>>
>> My plans (when I get time) are to strip it, add external framing, then remove the internal
>> ballast tanks.  Hopefully creating a nice platform to build on, with a little more room
>> inside.
>>
>> If I was doing this again, I would prefer to not buy a VAST, either hold out for a real
>> K250 or build one from scratch.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>    Ian.
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Personal_Submersibles mailing list
>Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles