[PSUBS-MAILIST] Trip?

Mon May 23 09:45:29 EDT 2022

 Hi James,
I think most of us have probably been decompressing from the trip for a couple days.  It was a long ride for everyone, but I think all would say well worth it.  I will be posting pictures and video on PSUBS soon.  Here's my summary.
Arrival was throughout the day on Thursday May 12 with six submarines attending from Virginia, Texas, California, Indiana, and Michigan.  We all stayed in the same hotel in Petoskey, MI which was an easy and short commute to all dive sites and activities.  Bernie Hellstrom was our host and his residence was the staging point for the submarines where air, oxygen, recharging, and repairs if necessary were provided.  Bernie had all the supplies and tools we could have wanted or needed and plenty of space to work on and store the submarines over night.  It was likely the best logistical setup we've ever had for a dive expedition.  Vessels were stored at Bernie's each night and we generally met back at his place around 8am each morning to prepare them for the days event.  We had about 15 people attending including our old Michigan friends Gary Sluis and Dan Brewer that some of you will remember.
Each morning we held a safety briefing to talk about the dive site, potential problems, current issues, and what we wanted to accomplish.  Communications were primarily over VHF on surface, which worked well, and while we intended to use OTS underwater we did not have good luck with it except for one vessel.  Without underwater coms vessels were asked to limit their dive to 30 minutes, surface to check in, then dive for another 30 minutes.
Friday the 13th we dove at the Keuka wreck in Lake Charlevoix.  I think most everyone would agree that this was a somewhat chaotic day in all respects.  While it was a sunny and warm day, it was also very windy which hampered surface ops for both submarines and surface vessels.  We had two surface boats and planned to put one on the bow of the wreck while the other would sit at the stern of the wreck, however both boats caught so much wind that neither of them stayed on station due to dragging their anchors.  This made locating the wreck by submarine very difficult since we couldn't guide them appropriately and in fact none of the submarines were able to locate the wreck.  Launch and recovery of submarines was also made difficult by the wave action and slowed down this process significantly.  Most of the submarines had not dived in a significant amount of time due to Covid and needed time to get their buoyancy worked out as well as other kinks and gremlins.
Saturday the 14th we went back to the Keuka wreck.  No wind and calm lake conditions along with lessons learned from the day before resulted in a near perfect execution of our dive plan.  We fabricated two surface floats with dive flags to mark off the bow and stern of the Keuka rather than depending upon the surface boats for that purpose.  While the submarines were preparing to launch we took a surface boat, located the wreck, and dropped the buoys in position (with 30 pound weights to ensure they would NOT move) which gave us a perfect visual reference of the wreck location from the surface.  We anchored one surface boat just off the port side of the wreck and used it as our command center while the other surface boat provided towing services and then stayed mobile around the dive site.  Cliff Redus did a self-powered surface transit to the dive site with the R-300 while Alec Smyth and Steve McQueen were towed out to the dive site inside their vessels.  All three submarines located the wreck and multiple photos/video were taken.  David Colombo and Dan Lance stayed near shore to concentrate on perfecting the buoyancy for his VAST submarine which he was diving for the first time.  This turned out to be a fruitful exercise well worth the effort since it allowed him to dive autonomously the next day.
Sunday the 15th we moved to a different location that provided an underwater wall drop off.  This was another windy day, however because this was essentially a free-dive as opposed to diving a specific target the wind did not hamper operations as it did on the 13th.  It did however make launch/recovery of submarines a bit challenging and we learned some lessons here as well.  We were able to get five submarines in the water actively diving this location.  No surface boats were needed for this dive since there was a large pier right on the edge of the underwater wall which acted as a perfect command tower.  Additionally a sea-wall provided relief from the wind and choppy waters for vessels that needed some tweaking with their buoyancy or equipment.
Night Dive - Sunday 15th.  After our first dive in the morning we returned all vessels to the staging area for resupply and came back to the "wall" location for a night dive around 9:30pm.  Conditions had turned calm with almost no wind.  We put three vessels in the water (R-300, Shackleton, VAST) without incident and turned them loose.  Given the clarity of the water we could track all three subs easily underwater by their lights.  From the surface we could see large fish attracted to the lights of the submarines swimming by.  This was a unique and satisfying experience.
Monday the 16th.  We took the submarines to Boyne City Elementary school for public display and interaction with the students there.  All our pilots were masterful educating the kids about their submarine and the Principal reported that more than 800 students had come out to see the vessels.  It was a good and satisfying experience for everyone I think.  Some of our pilots left for their trek home after this event, the rest of us left Petoskey the next morning.
All in all I think most attendees would probably rate this as one of out best "diving" conventions so far.  After the first day I think some of us were wondering if coordinating six vessels was a bit too much, but my own feeling is that after working out the kinks that first day all operations went pretty smoothly.  Support is critical for an expedition like this one.  Surface boats, supplies, and man-power is what makes it a success.  We had an excellent host and an excellent group of people that helped out in every aspect of operations, and we probably could have used more hands in terms of support.
Jon

    On Monday, May 23, 2022, 06:42:32 AM EDT, James Frankland via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:  

 Hi all,How did your dive trip go?  I saw some pics on Facebook but there hasn’t been the usual report on psubs so far.  I’m in bed with Covid so need something to keep me going😊Regards James_______________________________________________
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